Melba liston biography of william

American jazz trombonist, arranger, and composer (–)

Melba Liston
Liston in
Birth name	Melba Doretta Liston
Born	()January 13, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Died	April 23, () (aged&#;73) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer, arranger, music educator
Instrument	Trombone
Years active	s–s

Musical artist

Melba Doretta Liston (January 13, – April 23, )^[1] was an American jazz trombonist, arranger, and composer.

Other than those playing in all-female bands, she was the first lady trombonist to play in vast bands during the s and s, but as her career progressed she became better acknowledged as an arranger,^[2] particularly in partnership with pianist Randy Weston.^[3][4] Other major artists with whom she worked include Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, and Count Basie.^[5]

Biography

Early life and education

Liston was born in Kansas Capital, Missouri.^[1] At the age of seven, Liston's mother purchased her a trombone and she began learning to play.

Her family encouraged her musical pursuits, as they were all music lovers.^[6] Liston was primarily self-taught, but she was "encouraged by her guitar-playing grandfather", with whom she spent significant time learning to play spirituals and folk songs.^[7] At the age of eight, she was good enough to be a solo act on a local radio station.^[8] At the age of 10, she moved to Los Angeles, California.

Home » Jazz Musicians » Melba Liston. Melba appears on numerous big band sessions fromand recorded one album as a leader. She occasionally returned to playing in her later years, and can be found on a handful of records, with luminaries like Quincy Jones, Randy Weston, Clark Terry, and Oliver Nelson, from the s. Thanks for listening and please aid the

She was classmates with Dexter Gordon, and friends with Eric Dolphy.^[7] After playing in youth bands and studying with Alma Hightower for three years, she decided to become a professional musician and joined the big band led by Gerald Wilson in ^[9]

Career

Liston joined the Musicians Union (Local , the Colored Musicians Union) at the age of 16 in arrange to accept her first professional job with the Lincoln Theater pit band.^[10] She and Dexter Gordon began playing music together at the ages of fourteen and seventeen, respectively, and she recorded with Gordon in When Wilson disbanded his orchestra in , Liston joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band in New York,^[9] which included saxophonists John Coltrane, Paul Gonsalves, and pianist John Lewis, after being sought out personally by the bandleader for her talents as both a trombonist and as an arranger.^[11] Liston performed in a supporting role and was nervous when asked to take solos, but with encouragement she became more comfortable as a featured voice in bands,^[3] though it was her innovative jazz arrangements that legitimized her presence in a very male-dominated environment.^[11] She toured with Count Basie, then with Billie Holiday () but was so profoundly affected by the indifference of the audiences and the rigors of the highway that she gave up playing and turned to education.

Liston taught for about three years.

She took a clerical employment for some years and supplemented her income by taking operate as an extra in Hollywood, appearing with Lana Turner in The Prodigal ()^[12] and in The Ten Commandments ().

Liston returned to Gillespie for tours sponsored by the U.S. Mention Department in and , recorded with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (), and formed an all-women quintet in In , she visited Europe with the reveal Free and Easy, for which Quincy Jones was the harmony director.

She accompanied Billy Eckstine with the Quincy Jones Orchestra on At Basin Street East, released on October 1, , by Verve.

In the delayed s, she began collaborating with pianist Randy Weston,^[13] arranging compositions (primarily his own) for mid-size to large ensembles.

This association, especially strong in the s, would be rekindled in the late s and s until her death. In addition, she worked with Milt Jackson, Clark Terry, and Johnny Griffin, as well as working as an arranger for Motown, appearing on albums by Ray Charles.

In , she helped establish the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra.^[14] In she was chosen as musical arranger for Stax recording artist Calvin Scott, whose album was existence produced by Stevie Wonder's first producer, Clarence Paul.

On this album she worked with Joe Sample and Wilton Felder of the Jazz Crusaders, blues guitarist Arthur Adams, and jazz drummer Paul Humphrey. She worked with youth orchestras in Watts, California before accepting an invitation from the Government of Jamaica in to become the Director of Afro-American Pop and Jazz at the Jamaica School of Music.^[15] She returned to the U.S.

in where she was honored at the first Women's Jazz Festival in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Salute to Women in Jazz in New York, later forming a new band, Melba Liston and Company.^[15]

During her time in Jamaica, she unruffled and arranged music for the comedy film Smile Orange,^[16] starring Carl Bradshaw, who three years earlier starred in the first Jamaican film, The Harder They Come ().

Paved the way for women in jazz roles other than as vocalists. An only child and a musical prodigy, Melba was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in She said she was raised "between there and Kansas City, Kansas, where my grandparents were. After hearing Fats Waller on the radio when she was six, Melba invented a numbering system so she could notate songs and sing them later.

She also served as composer, arranger, and musical director of The Dread Mikado, a theater movie considered emblematic of the Jamaican cultural revolution.^[17]

She was forced to give up playing in after a stroke left her partially paralyzed,^[9] but she continued to arrange music with Randy Weston.

In , she was awarded a Jazz Masters Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.^[18]

Death

After suffering repeated strokes, Liston died in Los Angeles, California on April 23, ,^[19] a few days after a tribute to her and Randy Weston's music at Harvard University.

Her funeral at St. Peter's in Manhattan featured performances by Weston with Jann Parker, as adequately as by Chico O'Farrill's Afro-Cuban ensemble and by Lorenzo Shihab (vocals).^{[citation needed]}

Composing and arranging

Liston was already writing and arranging melody while in high school and she viewed that work as the central contribution of her career, stating on numerous occasions throughout her life that she preferred writing music to playing and soloing.^[15]

Her early work with the high-profile bands of Enumerate Basie and Dizzy Gillespie shows a strong command of the big-band and bop idioms.

She worked as an arranger for numerous recording companies, especially Motown, and arranged scores for dozens of high profile musicians, including Clark Terry, Marvin Gaye, Mary Lou Williams, and Gloria Lynne.

However, perhaps her most vital work was written for Randy Weston, with whom she collaborated on and off for four decades from the late s into the ^[13] Her serve with Weston has been compared to the collaborations of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington.

Liston worked as a "ghost writer" during her career. According to one writer, "Many of the arrangements found in the Gillespie, Jones, and Weston repertoires were accomplished by Liston."^[20]

Legacy

Liston was a female in a profession of mostly males.

Although some^[21] examine her an unsung hero,^[8] she is highly regarded in the jazz community. Liston was a trailblazer as a trombonist, composer, and a woman. She articulated difficulties of being a miss on the road:

"There's those natural problems on the route, the female problems, the lodging problems, the laundry, and all those kinda things to attempt to keep yourself together, problems that somehow or other the guys don't seem to hold to go through."^[20]

She goes on to recount the struggles she experienced as an African-American gal, which affected her musical career.^[20] However, she generally spoke positively about the camaraderie with and support from male musicians.^[3] Liston also dealt with larger issues of inequity in the melody industry.

One writer has said, "It was clear that she had to continually prove her credentials in order to earn suitable employment as a artist, composer, and arranger. She was not paid equitable scale and was often denied access to the larger opportunities as a composer and arranger."^[20]

Musical style

Liston's musical style reflects bebop and post-bop sensibilities learned from Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, and Art Blakey.

Her earliest recorded work—such as Gordon's "Mischievous Lady" a tribute to her—her solos show a blend of motivic and unbroken improvisation, though they seem to make less use of extended harmonies and alterations.^[6]

Her arrangements, especially those with Weston, show a flexibility that transcends her musical upbringing in the bebop s, whether working in the styles of swing, post-bop, African musics, or Motown.^[6] Her command of rhythmic gestures, grooves, and polyrhythms is particularly notable (as illustrated in Uhuru Afrika and Highlife).

Her instrumental parts demonstrate an active use of harmonic possibilities; although her arrangements suggest relatively subdued interest in the explorations of free jazz ensembles, they use an extended tonal vocabulary, rich with altered harmonic voicings, thick layering, and dissonance.

Her work throughout her career has been well received by both critics and audiences alike.^[6]

Discography

As public figure or co-leader

With Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers

With Betty Carter

With Ray Charles

With Dizzy Gillespie

With Quincy Jones

With Jimmy Smith

With Dinah Washington

With Randy Weston

With others

• Last Chorus, Ernie Henry
• Tales of Manhattan, Babs Gonzales
• Trane Whistle, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis
• African Waltz, Cannonball Adderley
• At Basin Street East, Billy Eckstine/Quincy Jones
• Rah, Label Murphy
• The Chant, Sam Jones
• The Soul of Hollywood, Junior Mance
• Afro/American Sketches, Oliver Nelson
• Big Bags, Milt Jackson
• Bursting Out with the All-Star Vast Band!, Oscar Peterson
• Rhythm Is My Business, Ella Fitzgerald
• The Complete Town Hall Concert, Charles Mingus
• For Someone I Love, Milt Jackson
• The Body & the Soul, Freddie Hubbard
• Mary Lou Williams Presents Black Christ of the Andes, Mary Lou Williams
• And Then Again, Elvin Jones
• Roll 'Em: Shirley Scott Plays the Big Bands, Shirley Scott
• A Mann & A Woman, Tamiko Jones/Herbie Mann
• Heads Up, Blue Mitchell
• Listen Here, Freddie McCoy
• Kim Kim Kim, Kim Weston
• That Lovin' Feelin', Junior Mance
• Skylark, Freddie Hubbard^[22]

References

Further reading

• Black Music Investigate Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring ). Special issue dedicated to Melba Liston.
• Ammer, Christine. Unsung: A History of Women in American Music, 2nd ed.

  Portland, OR: Amadeus.

• Dahl, Linda. Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen. Brand-new York: Pantheon.
• Hughes, Langston. Liner notes, Uhuru Afrika. (See discography.)
• Miller, S.

  L. ().

  American jazz trombonist and arranger. Name variations: Melba Doretta Liston. Born in Kansas CityMissouri, on January 13, Gillespie's Dizzy Gillespie at Newport Verve ,

  "Randy Weston & Melba Liston: Together Again, Miraculously". Jazz Times. 22 (1):

External links

• Interview of Melba ListonArchived October 27, , at , Center for Oral History Research, UCLA Library Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.
• "Melba Liston: Bones of an Arranger", NPR
• "Melba Liston: A Sensitive and Daring Arranger", The Scotsman
• "Melba Liston and Her 'Bones", All About Jazz
• Melba Liston at Women in Jazz
• Melba Liston with Randy Weston
• Liptrott, Josephine, "Biography: Melba Liston – Jazz Trombonist", The Heroine Collection, December 19,
• Guide to the Melba Liston Collection, Center for Black Music Study, Columbia College Chicago
• Guide to the Hale Smith and Melba Liston Recordings, Center for Black Tune Research, Columbia College Chicago