Myra Melford's Snowy Egret

This Saturday, The Jazz Gallery will present the debut performance of Myra Melford's new ensemble, Snowy Egret.In a career spanning three decades, the "insightful and far-reaching pianist-composer" (New York Times) has apprenticed in the bands of leading experimentalists such as Leroy Jenkins, Joseph Jarman, Henry Threadgill and Butch Morris, and studied with pianists Jaki Byard, Don Pullen, and Ran Blake. In the forward to the 2011 Rhapsody Jazz Critics' Poll, award-winning journalist Francis Davis noted, "Myra Melford lately seems to have entered a phase where she can do no wrong."Snowy Egret is the most recent product of this phase. This new ensemble represents the evolution of one of Myra's previous projects, Happy Whistlings. The latter group was formed in 2008, and interpreted Myra's original music inspired by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy. Snowy Egret picks up where Happy Whistlings left of, building upon new arrangements of the original pieces and juxtaposing them against newer works. The group features musicians Ron Miles (trumpet), Liberty Ellman (guitar), Stomu Takeishi (electric bass), Tyshawn Sorey (drums) as well as dancer Oguri.Watch a video of Myra, Stomu, and Oguri performing live at Inage Candy in Chiba, Japan here.