Search - Myra Melford :: Above Blue / Same River Twice

Myra Melford's second outing with her quintet the Same River, Twice is an impressive statement of both her stylistic range and her generosity as a bandleader. The pianist embraces the jazz avant-garde, but she also knows the value of a catchy tune. "Be Melting Snow" begins with a nimble unison articulation of an air that Chick Corea would doubtless like to call his own, then slips into a stormy, percussive piano solo that resolves into a sweet ballad statement by trumpeter Dave Douglas. Melford's writing is ambitiously varied, but also digestibly sequential. The title suite begins with a lush, near-classical exchange between Melford and Erik Friedlander's plucked cello, then launches into a gleeful two-horn steeplechase after a theme reminiscent of those Eastern European motifs that Douglas plays in his own Tiny Bell Trio. Friedlander returns to take a bluesy bowed solo that morphs into a Latin-tinged polyphony enlivened by Chris Speed's clarinet, which winds ribbons around yet another splendid trumpet solo before the composition's unabashedly melodramatic resolution. --Bill Meyer