Melford's Radical Piano Trio in Motion
Melford makes the piano stand up and do things it doesn't seem designed for.
Hex arrived in 2002 as a document of Melford's working trio at full intensity—a record that didn't generate immediate mainstream noise but built credibility among listeners serious about what contemporary piano jazz could sound like. This was never going to be a crossover record, and it wasn't positioned as one. Instead it circulated among the avant-garde faithful, people already tuned to Melford's restless harmonic thinking and her refusal to play it safe. The album has since become one of the clearer entry points to her music, partly because the trio format strips away distraction and puts her playing in sharp relief.
What makes Hex work is the precision of the conversation between the three voices. Joseph Sabella on drums and Dino J.A. Deane on bass drum, sampler, and shakuhachi create a landscape that's neither traditional timekeeping nor pure texture—it's responsive, sometimes minimal, sometimes dense, always listening. Melford's piano moves through post-bop vocabulary, free improvisation, and angular composed lines with equal fluency. She doesn't grandstand. The pieces breathe. Tracks like the title work show how much space matters here; the trio understands that silence is as important as sound, that a single struck note can carry weight.
Hex sits in the middle of Melford's discography—not early enough to catch her finding her voice, not late enough to be retrospective. It's a snapshot of a pianist working at the height of her powers, uninterested in repeating herself and confident enough to let the music find its own shape. For listeners accustomed to more conventional trio formats, this will feel austere. For those already invested in Melford's vision, it remains one of her most focused recordings.
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