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Melba Liston
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Melba Liston was born in 1926 in Kansas City, Missouri. Her mother bought a trombone for her when she was seven, and she taught herself the instrument for the most part, with encouragement from her grandfather, a guitarist. At sixteen she joined the union for Black musicians, in order to take her first job in the orchestra of the Lincoln Theater. She played alongside Dexter Gordon and recorded with him in 1947. When Gerald Wilson's orchestra was disbanded in 1948, she went to Dizzy Gillespie. She was the first female trombonist to play alongside men in big bands from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Music and breakthrough
In the 1950s she did other work for a time, including as an extra in Hollywood, and toured with Gillespie for the American State Department. In 1957 she recorded with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and in 1958 she formed a quintet of women. Her album Melba Liston and Her 'Bones appeared in 1959. She also worked for Milt Jackson, Clark Terry and Johnny Griffin, and wrote arrangements for Motown and for Marvin Gaye, Mary Lou Williams and Gloria Lynne.
Influence
Increasingly she became known as an arranger. She considered writing more important than soloing. Her collaboration with the pianist Randy Weston, which ran from the late 1950s, in particular produced a great deal of work for mid-sized and large ensembles. In Jamaica she composed, among other things, for the film Smile Orange and directed the music of The Dread Mikado. A stroke forced her to stop playing in 1985, but she carried on arranging. In 1987 she received a Jazz Masters Fellowship. She died in 1999.
Listening
Discography
Studio albums
In School of Rock
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