Fond Reveries of the Late, Great Arranger Melba Liston

Composer, arranger and trombonist Melba Liston, who died last Friday in Los Angeles at 73, is recalled as a great person and musician by one of her first employers, bandleader Gerald Wilson.

“She joined my band in November of 1944,” Wilson says, “and she could do it all. She was already writing when she joined and, because I was into a different thing than she did, different kind of harmonies and all, she acquired some of those things, I’m sure.”

Liston was with Wilson’s band until 1950. Both joined Dizzy Gillespie’s band around that time, and both were in the group that backed Billie Holiday in 1949. “I was very glad to have these opportunities with her,” Wilson says.

While in Gillespie’s band, Liston was introduced to her longtime collaborator, pianist Randy Weston. “I initially met her at [New York’s] Birdland when she was playing trombone with Dizzy,” Weston says in a phone call from his home in Brooklyn. “The first work we did together was in 1958. I was writing a series of waltzes for children at the time, and I was so impressed with her arrangement of ‘My Reverie’ that I asked her to help. We collaborated on ‘Little Niles.’

“Melba was just incredible,” Weston continues. “She was among the top, top arrangers, as good as anybody who ever wrote. She had a wonderful quality of digging the best out of an artist when she wrote for them and that was true of myself. We became musically inseparable. She was a great, great woman.”

In the last decade, Liston arranged several projects with Weston for the Antilles label, including “Spirits of Our Ancestors,” “Volcano Blues” and “Earth Birth,” which includes a string section from the Montreal Symphony. Their most recent project is the Verve recording “Khepera,” which was released last fall.

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Live Recordings: There’s something new being cooked up at the Jazz Bakery. The nonprofit concert space has planned a series of dual piano concerts that will be recorded live and released on CD under the Bakery’s own label.

The project is the result of a $75,000 grant awarded to the Jazz Bakery last fall by the California Presenters Initiative / Arts International / James Irvine Foundation. The award helps cover production costs for a series of six duo-piano concerts to be recorded and released on the Jazz Bakery label. The first concert, scheduled for June 18-19, matches pianists Mulgrew Miller and Billy Childs.

Future two-piano shows include the pairings of Kenny Werner and Alan Pasqua and brothers Don and Dave Grusin. Dave Grusin is the artistic consultant of the series.

“We’re really encouraging people to attend these concerts,” says Ruth Price, president and artistic director of the Jazz Bakery. “What we need [in these recordings] is the excitement and the input of an audience. The concerts will truly be jazz, of the moment and spontaneous, with no rehearsal between the pianists.” Jazz Bakery information: (310) 271-9039.

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Tribute: New York City will pay tribute to Los Angeles’ Horace Tapscott on June 15 when the New York-based Artists’ Network of Refuse & Resist presents an evening in the late pianist’s memory at the Knitting Factory. Scheduled to appear are pianist Randy Weston, saxophonist Don Byron, pianist Uri Caine, guitarist Marc Ribot, saxophonist Roy Nathanson of the Jazz Passengers, bassists Ray Drummond and Wilbur Morris and others. All proceeds will benefit Tapscott’s Los Angeles-based Union of God’s Artists and Musicians Ascension and the Tapscott family. Information: (212) 219-3006 or https://www.knittingfactory.com.

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Alternative: The newly remodeled Electric Lodge performance center in Venice celebrates its grand opening month with “Bootstrap: Creative Emergence,” a three-day festival being offered June 11-13 as an alternative to the Playboy festival, held that same weekend.

“We want to develop the broad community audience base that is not served by the programming of the Playboy Jazz Festival,” says festival director Adam Rudolph. “Our goal is to develop collaborations between jazz players and avant-garde improvisers, the world music and progressive hip-hop communities and establish the Electric as a cooperative where local and touring musicians can perform on an ongoing basis.”

To that end, Bootstrap will include Middle Eastern percussionists, deejays and a variety of hybrid, improvisational ensembles over the course of the three-day event. Artists scheduled to appear in the Electric’s 100-seat acoustic performance space include cornetist Bobby Bradford, multi-reed player Vinny Golia, percussionist Adam Rudolph, Persian drummer Pejman Hadadi, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, the Tapscott Collective with drummer Billy Higgins, pianist Larry Karush, vocalist Dwight Trible and others with headliners yet to be confirmed. Information: (323) 692-8080.

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Three Guitarists: Guitarist Mike Stern, who opens a six-day run at Catalina Bar & Grill on Tuesday, is finishing up an album for Atlantic that includes contributions from fellow guitarists Bill Frisell and John Scofield. The same band that joins Stern at Catalina--saxophonist Bobby Malach, bassist Victor Goines and drummer Dennis Chambers--will be heard on the album, which is set for release in the fall. Catalina information: (323) 466-2210.

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Women in Jazz: Acclaimed, all-female jazz orchestras representing both coasts--New York’s 14-piece band Diva, led by drummer Sherrie Maricle, and L.A.’s own Maiden Voyage, led by saxophonist Ann Patterson--appear Saturday at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex on the campus of Cal State L.A., 8 p.m. Information: (323) 343-6600.