Melba Liston was first played on NTS on 8 March 2018. Songs played include Insomnia.

Melba Doretta Liston (January 13, 1926 – April 23, 1999) was an American jazz musician (trombone, compositions, musical arrangements). Her collaborations with pianist / composer Randy Weston, beginning in the early 1960s, are widely acknowledged as jazz classics.

Life and career

Liston was born in Kansas City, Missouri. 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…