Myra Melford, piano
Han Bennink, drums
Mary Oliver, violin

Drummer and multi - instrumentalist Han Bennink was born in Zaandam near Amsterdam in 1942. His first percussion instrument was a kitchen chair. Later his father, an orchestra percussionist, supplied him with a more conventional outfit, but Han never lost his taste for coaxing sounds from unlikely objects he finds backstage at concerts. He is still very fond of playing chairs.
In Holland in the 1960s, Bennink was quickly recognized as an uncommonly versatile drummer. As a hard swinger in the tradition of his hero Kenny Clarke, he accompanied touring American jazz stars, including Sonny Rollins, Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Griffin, Eric Dolphy and Dexter Gordon. He is heard with Gordon on the 1969 album “Live at Amsterdam Paradiso“ (on the Affinity label) and with Dolphy on 1964's “Last Date“ (Polygram). At the same time, Bennink participated in the creation of a European improvised music which began to evolve a new identity, apart from its jazz roots. With fellow Dutch pioneers, pianist Misha Mengelberg and saxophonist Willem Breuker, he founded the musicians collective Instant Composer's Pool in 1967. Bennink anchored various bands led by Mengelberg or Breuker, and appeared in their comic music - theatre productions.
Bennink attended art school in the 1960s, and is also a successful visual artist in several media, often constructing sculpture from found objects, which may include broken drum heads and sticks. He has designed the covers for many LPs and CDs on which he appears. A book covering all his art work for LP and CD covers was voted one of the best packaged editions of 2010.
Bennink has the subject of several one-man shows, including Ravenna, Kongsberg, Antwerp, Sarajevo, Calgary and many more
In 1966, Bennink played the US's Newport Jazz Festival with the Mengelberg quartet. From the late 1960s through the '70s Bennink collaborated frequently with Danish, German, and Belgian musicians, notably saxophonists John Tchicai and Peter Brotzmann, guitarist Derek Bailey and pianist Fred van Hove. Bennink, Brotzmann and van Hove had a longstanding trio well documented on FMP Records. There Bennink also showcased his talents on clarinet, trombone, soprano, saxophone and many other instruments, also featured in a series of solo albums he began in 1971.
Benninks's many recordings from the 1980s include sessions with Mengelberg's ICP Orchestra (where he remains), South Africa bassist Harry Miller, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, trombonists Roswell Rudd and George Lewis, and big - bandleaders Sean Bergin and Andy Sheppard.
From 1988 to '98 Bennink's main vehicle was Clusone 3, with saxophonist and clarinetist Michael Moore and cellist Ernst Reijseger, a band noted for its free-wheeling mix of swinging jazz standards, wide - open improvising, and tender ballads. Clusone played Europe and North America, West Africa, China, Vietnam and Australia, and recorded five CDs for Gramavision, hat Art and Ramboy.
A conspicuous feature of Bennink's musical life since the 1960s is the spontaneous duo concert with musicians of many nationalities and musical inclinations; in the '90s he recorded in duo with among others pianists Mengelberg, Irene Schweizer and Myra Melford, guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, trumpeter Dave Douglas and tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin.
Nowadays he is frequently heard with tenor saxophonist Tobias Deliu's quartet and in a trio with pianist/keyboardist Cor Fuhler and bassist Wilbert de Joode, and he still collaborates occasionally with jazz luminaries such as Johnny Griffin, Von Freeman and Ray Anderson. He also performs in Holshouser/Bennink/Moore with Michael Moore and accordionist Will Holshouser, and has recently started his own Han Bennink Trio with pianist Simon Toldam and clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst.
Han Bennink was presented with the European Jazz Prize of 2008. A biography about Han Bennink and a film documentary was released in September 2009.

Mary Oliver, violin, viola, and hardanger fiddle, is a performer whose virtuosity spans the worlds of scored and improvised music. Oliver (b. La Jolla, California) completed her studies at the University of California, San Diego where she received her Ph.D for her research in the theory and practice of improvised music. Her doctoral thesis, “Constellations in Play,” identified a new kind of creative discipline, which Oliver has pursued with colleagues locally and around the world.
As a soloist, Oliver has performed in numerous international festivals and premiered works by, among others John Cage, Chaya Czernowin, Brian Ferneyhough, Lou Harrison, Joëlle Léandre, George E. Lewis, Liza Lim, and Iannis Xenakis. She has worked alongside improvising musicians such as Han Bennink, Mark Dresser, Cor Fuhler, Joëlle Leandre, Phil Minton and Alexander von Schlippenbach.
Based in Amsterdam, Oliver is a member of the Instant Composers Pool (ICP) Orkest, and a regular collaborator with dancer/choreographer Michael Schumacher. Her current projects include two duos: Oliver & Heggen with contrabassist Rozemarie Heggen; and JOMO with cellist Johanna Varner. She is on the faculty at the Hogeschool voor het Kunst Utrecht teaching at the school for Kunst, Media and Technologie.

A fearless musical adventurer – in both her composing and playing – Myra Melford has followed a fascinating path since determining to forge a career in music in 1980. Having studied classical piano into her teens, she had no real exposure to jazz until college. Improvisation rekindled her early love of the piano, and she plunged in to develop a signature style.
At the keyboard, Melford recasts the blues and boogie-woogie of her native Chicago, folds in elements of the music of Eastern Europe and India, and blends them with the rangy, percussive avant-garde approach she cultivated in studies with Don Pullen and Henry Threadgill. This personal musical vocabulary is further enriched by a lush lyricism and organized by an architectural sense of composition that she derived from classical training.
As veteran critic Francis Davis wrote: “(She) is the genuine article, the most gifted pianist/composer to emerge from jazz since Anthony Davis." With more than 30 recordings in her catalog – including 19 as leader or co-leader – Melford currently divides her time between teaching, composition and performance. Since 2004, she has been on the music faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where she has developed and taught a series of courses in contemporary jazz and improvisation-based music for performers and composers. She also lectures on innovations in jazz since the 1960s and other topics in contemporary improvised music.