The Indiana Public Media radio show Night Lights is host David Brent Johnson’s excellent recurring work. Back in March, David did a show on composer/arranger/trombonist Melba Liston:

“Liston was born in Kansas City in 1926, spending her first years in the city that was playing host to a future jazz giant, pianist and arranger/composer Mary Lou Williams. When Liston was six or seven she said she saw a trombone, “just beautiful, standing up in the shop window like a mannequin, and I was just mesmerized by it… it just did something to me.” Her mother bought it for her. In 1936 her family moved to Los Angeles, where Liston studied with a woman named Alma Hightower, an early advocate for black culture, through a WPA musical instruction program that played a crucial role in building Liston’s musical foundation.”

The show on Melba is well worth checking out!

One slight correction: on the recording Dizzy Gillespie at Newport (1957) featured in the show, the Cool Breeze trombone solo is actually played by Al Grey. It is Liston on My Reverie, of course, and here’s another (kinescope) version of Liston performing that one, complete with a transcription:

On a recording of her own (also featured on the Night Lights show), here’s Melba Liston in the company of fellow jazz trombonists of her generation: Jimmy Cleveland, Al Grey, Slide Hampton, Benny Green, Bennie Powell, and Frank Rehak: