Melba Liston

Melba Doretta Liston (January 13, 1926 – April 23, 1999) was an American jazz trombonist, musical arranger, and composer. She was the first woman trombonist to play in big bands during the 1940s and 1960s.

Life and career

Liston was born in Kansas City, Missouri. At the age of seven, Melba's mother purchased her a trombone. Her family was very encouraging of her musical pursuits, as they were all music lovers. Melba Liston was primarily self-taught, but "encouraged by her guitar-playing grandfather," who she spent significant time with learning to play spirituals and folk songs. At the age of eight, she was already good enough to be soloing on the local radio station. At the age of ten, she moved to Los Angeles, California. She was classmates with Dexter Gordon, and friends with Eric Dolphy. After playing in youth bands and studying with Alma Hightower and others, she joined the big band led by Gerald Wilson in 1943. She began to work with the emerging major names of the bebop scene in the mid-1940s. She recorded with saxophonist Dexter Gordon in 1947, and joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band (which included saxophonists John Coltrane, Paul Gonsalves, and pianist John Lewis) in New York for a time, when Wilson disbanded his orchestra in 1948. She toured with Count Basie for a time, and then with Billie Holiday (1949) but was so profoundly affected by the indifference of the audiences and the rigors of the road that she gave up playing and turned to education instead. Liston taught for about three years.