Hectic eclectic

Myra Melford's 'music in the making'

by Ed Hazell

Pianist Myra Melford's The Same River, Twice (Gramavision) is a breakthrough for one of new music's most creative composer-improvisers. All the characteristics that marked her previous releases are here: a command of many idioms, a bright tone and percussive touch on the keyboard, driving energy, and intricate group interplay. But in her new work the barriers between idioms are more porous. At times several kinds of music might co-exist, or might chase one another through a revolving door of compositional allusions. The result is a kaleidoscopic, joyous album that's a challenge to listen to and a pleasure to hear.

Melford's playing also displays a probing eclecticism as she looks for new ways to integrate herself into the ensemble. On "Crush" she alludes to jazz and classical influences with involved Bud Powell lines, Cecil Taylor dissonance, rolling Earl Hines tremolos, and Schoenbergian atonality. On "The Large Ends the Way," she varies her role within the ensemble, offering supportive, Monkish chords or weaving linear parts into the fabric of the group.

"Part of my goal in writing for this ensemble was freeing myself up from the traditional rhythm-section function of the piano," she explains over the phone from her New York apartment. "I don't play like that anyway -- although sometimes I do -- but I was really looking for other parts for the piano. That's also why I wanted to use cello. I play the whole range of the piano and I wanted to be able to play more of the low end of the piano and not get in the way of a bass."

The latter remark alludes to the unusual absence of a bass in her new quintet, which is also called The Same River, Twice. It features trumpeter Dave Douglas (the only holdover from her previous Extended Ensemble), woodwind player Chris Speed, cellist Erik Friedlander, and drummer Michael Sarin. They are perfectly suited to Melford's vision -- a vision that ignores barriers and revels in a freedom of expression that is as disciplined as it is liberating.

"I was looking for a different type of improvising personality from my trio and Extended Ensemble," Melford points out. "One that would be more fluid with references to 20th-century classical music, various kinds of jazz, marching-band rhythms, or Eastern European folk music, and really be able to work with those references in a playful way."

The quintet's beautifully realized performances conceal the boundaries between genres as well as between writing and improvising. "At this point in my composing, knowing the personalities who are playing the music really makes a huge difference. The Extended Ensemble was really pivotal for me in that respect, but to get to the next step I needed The Same River, Twice. It's really important for me to know that the players have a feel for what I'm writing."

The compositions are rich in references and the line-up lets one idea melt into another, bangs them together with mischievous force, or jump-cuts back and forth between contrasting passages. On "Drawing in the Dark," moments of Bartókian nostalgia are counterbalanced with abstract textural improvisations and tangled linear exposition underpinned by rhythms that are hybrids of jazz and Balkan folk music. On "The Large Ends the Way," a marvelously orchestrated chamber-music episode ends in a march.

The 39-year-old Melford studied with Boston pianist and Third Stream innovator Ran Blake and has worked with such pathbreakers as Butch Morris, Leroy Jenkins, and Joseph Jarman. She credits composer-instrumentalist Henry Threadgill for helping her find her own compositional voice. "He showed how to start with a very simple idea, whether it's rhythmic or melodic, and develop it. I never studied composition formally, so it was all important stuff for me to know. I worked with what he showed until I found a way to piece things together that felt right. The form always comes out of the material. With some of my extended pieces, I've known that I wanted different kinds of sections, but I never forced anything. It naturally flowed out of the material.

"I use improvisation a lot to develop the material and to make transitions between written material. It's as crucial for the band to understand what I'm going for in terms of the whole shape of the piece as it is for them to have a lot of freedom to play whatever they want. One reason I enjoy this ensemble so much is once they figure out what the material is, they play it differently every time. As a composer, and an improviser, and as a player of my own music, that's what I'm looking for -- there's no definitive performance of a particular piece. The music is always in the making."