LIVE at Piedmont Piano Company
Trio M
Mark Dresser, Myra Melford, Matt Wilson
Featuring protean pianist Myra Melford, galvanizing bassist Mark Dresser, and supremely musical drummer Matt Wilson, Trio M brings together three visionary jazz artists with extensive track records in adventurous ensembles. Unbound by piano trio conventions, the leaderless project erases distinctions between frontline and accompanist, requiring each player to shape the music’s flow as it unfolds. The resulting sounds can be fierce and beatific, playful and rigorous, earthy or abstract, extravagantly joyous or quietly introspective.
$25 General Admission
We are offering a limited number of tickets to attend this performance in person. Advance purchase is recommended. Masking is encouraged but no longer required.
“This is a powerful trio with the musicians deeply in sync with each other. While different instruments will occasionally take a lead role in particular improvisations, it is the collective integrity of the music that impresses the most.” – DTMG
“With a nod to its enduring fertility, Trio M joyfully confounds expectations with the litheness afforded by the piano trio format.” – All About Jazz
“What makes this trio so different is not that they depart this strong structure…but that everything they spontaneously come upon creates new forms, and the relationships among the forms is never obvious.” – JazzTimes
“Arresting in its captivating melodicism, and profoundly egalitarian in its balance of instrumental voices…Trio M is one of the delights of the year. Highest recommendation!” – IAJRC Journal
MARK DRESSER
Mark Dresser is a Grammy nominated, internationally renowned bass player, improviser, and composer. At the core of his music is an obsession and commitment to expanding the sonic, musical, and expressive possibilities of the contrabass. He has recorded over one hundred-fifty CDs including ten CDs as composer/bandleader, six solo recordings and a DVD. From 1985 to 1994, he was a member of Anthony Braxton’s Quartet. He has also performed and recorded music of Ray Anderson, Jane Ira Bloom, Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, Dave Douglas, Osvaldo Golijov, Gerry Hemingway, Lei Liang, Denman Maroney, Bob Ostertag, Joe Lovano, Roger Reynolds, Henry Threadgill, Dawn Upshaw, John Zorn. Since 2007 he has been deeply involved in telematic music performance and education. He was awarded a 2015 & 2018 Shifting Foundation Award and 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award. He is a former board member of the International Society of Bassists. He is a Distinguished Professor of Music at UC San Diego, mark-dresser.com
"Calling contrabassist Mark Dresser a virtuoso is like saying Albert Einstein was good at math." – San Diego City Times
“Mr. Dresser, a bassist who is one of the great instrumental forces in recent American jazz outside of the mainstream...” – New York Times
MYRA MELFORD
The pianist, composer, bandleader and professor Myra Melford—whom the New Yorker called “a stalwart of the new-jazz movement”—has spent the last three decades making original music that is equally challenging and engaging. Culling inspiration from a wide range of sources including the blues of her native Chicago, the poetry of Fernando Pessoa, literature by Eduardo Galeano, visual art and architecture, innovative jazz artists such as Cecil Taylor and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), yoga, and Eastern philosophy. She’s explored an array of formats, among them solo-piano recitals, deeply interactive combos and ambitious multidisciplinary programs.
Her newest ensemble project, Fire and Water, debuted its critically acclaimed release, For the Love of Fire and Water, in April 2022 on RogueArt Records and has a second release coming in November 2023, Hear the Light Singing. The Other Side of Air, the 2018 release by her quintet Snowy Egret, was named one of the best jazz recordings of 2018 by the New York Times and one of NPR Music’s 50 Best Albums of 2018. “This is music with an endless capacity for elasticity and surprise,” NPR wrote, “along with an affirming spirit of coherence.” She has received: a Fulbright Fellowship (2000), the Alpert Award in the Arts for Music (2012) a Guggenheim Fellowship (2013), the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2013-16) and the Doris Duke Residency to Build Demand for the Arts (2013). She’s appeared in the Down Beat Magazine and Jazz Journalists Association polls numerous times since 1990. myramelford.com
MATT WILSON
Few musicians embody the spontaneous energy of jazz quite like Matt Wilson. The New York-based drummer combines buoyant zeal, idiosyncratic style, infectious humor, joyous swing and an indomitable spirit of surprise, making him one of the most in-demand players and educators in jazz today.
Wilson was named 2018 Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association and his album, Honey And Salt (Music Inspired by the Poetry of Carl Sandburg), won 2018 Album of the Year. He has appeared on over 500 albums and has released 20 acclaimed recordings as a leader.
A renowned educator, Wilson is on a tireless mission to foster a lively and deep connection between music and people, whether they be playing or listening to it. Wilson is on faculty at the New School, San Francisco Conservatory, SUNY Purchase and Sarah Lawrence College. mattwilsonjazz.com