Marilyn Crispell

Marilyn Crispell (born March 30, 1947) is an American jazz pianist and composer.

Crispell was born in Philadelphia. She studied classical piano and composition at the New England Conservatory of Music. She has been a resident of Woodstock, NY since 1977 when she came to study and teach at Karl Berger's Creative Music Studio. She discovered jazz through the music of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and other contemporary jazz players and composers as Paul Bley and Leo Smith.

For ten years she was a member of Anthony Braxton's Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble. She has been a member of the Barry Guy New Orchestra as well as a member of the Henry Grimes Trio, the Europea Quartet Noir (with Urs Leimgruber, Fritz Hauser and Joëlle Léandre), and Anders Jormin's Bortom Quintet.

In 1981 she performed at the Woodstock Jazz Festival, held in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Creative Music Studio.

In 2005 she performed and recorded with the NOW Orchestra in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and in 2006 she was co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz.

Crispell has performed and recorded as a soloist and leader of her own groups. She has also performed and recorded music by contemporary composers John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Robert Cogan, Pozzi Escot, Manfred Niehaus and Anthony Davis (including his opera X with the New York City Opera).

In addition to playing, she has taught improvisation workshops and given lecture/demonstrations at universities and art centers in the U.S., Europe, Canada and New Zealand, and has collaborated with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets. She received a 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship.

As leader/co-leader

As side musician

with Roscoe Mitchell

• Sketches From Bamboo (Moers, 1979)

with Wadada Leo Smith

• Budding of a Rose (Moers, 1979)

with Anthony Braxton

• Creative Orchestra (Köln) 1978 (hatART, 1978 [1995])
• Composition 98 (hatART, 1981)
• Six Compositions (Quartet) 1984 (Black Saint, 1985)
• Prag 1984 (Quartet Performance) (Sound Aspects, 1984 [1990])
• Quartet (London) 1985 (Leo, 1985 [1988])
• Quartet (Birmingham) 1985 (Leo, 1985 [1991])
• Quartet (Coventry) 1985 (Leo, 1985 [1993])
• Willisau (Quartet) 1991 (hatART, 1991)
• (Victoriaville) 1992 (Victo, 1993)
• Twelve Compositions (Music & Arts, 1993)
• Quartet (Santa Cruz) 1993 (hatART, 1993 [1997])

with Reggie Workman

• Synthesis (Leo, 1986)
• Images (Musics & Arts, 1990)
• Altered Spaces (Leo, 1993)

with Larry Ochs

• The Secret Magritte (Black Saint, 1995)

with Francois Houle

• Any Terrain Tumultuous (Red Toucan, 1995)

with Michael Moore and Gerry Hemingway

• MGM Trio (Ramboy, 1996)

with Bobby Zankel

• Human Flowers (CIMP, 1996)

with Scott Fields

• 48 Motives, January 11, 1996 (Cadence, 1996)
• Five Frozen Eggs (Music & Arts, 1996)
• Sonotropism (Music & Arts, 1997)

with Steve Lacy

• Five Facings (FMP, 1996)

with Ivo Perelman

• En Adir (Music & Arts, 1997)
• Sound Hierarchy (Music & Arts, 1997)

with Barry Guy London Jazz Composer's Orchestra

• Three Pieces for Orchestra (Intakt, 1997)
• Double Trouble Two (Intakt, 1998)

with Guy-Gustafsson-Strid Trio

• The Fabled 1996 Radio Sweden Concert: gryffgryffgryffs (Music & Arts, 1997)

with Parker-Guy-Lytton Trio

• Natives and Aliens (Leo, 1997)
• After Appleby (Leo, 2000)

with Urs Liemgruber, Joelle Leandre and Fritz Hauser

• Quartet Noir (Victo, 1999)
• Quartet Noir Lugano (Victo, 2005)

with Joelle Leandre

• Joelle Léandre Project (Leo Records, 2000)
• Stone Quartet: Live at Vision Festival (Ayler, 2011)

with Lotte Anker and Marilyn Mazur

• Poetic Justice (Dacapo, 2000)

with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton

• Odyssey (Intakt, 2001)
• Ithaca (Intakt, 2004)
• Phases of the Night (Intakt, 2008)

with Barry Guy New Orchestra

• Inscape—Tableaux (Intakt, 2001)

with Anders Jormin

• In Winds, In Light (ECM, 2004)

with NOW Orchestra

• Pola (Victo, 2005)

with Michele Rabbia and Vincent Courtois

• Shifting Grace (CAM Jazz, 2006)

with Gunhild Seim & Time Jungle

• Elephant Wings (Drollehala, 2012)

with Tisziji Munoz

• Auspicious Healing (Anami Music, 2000)
• Breaking the Wheel of Life and Death (Anami, 2000)
• Heart to Heart (Anami, 2013)
• Beautiful Empty Fullness (Anami, 2014)
• The Paradox of Independence (Anami, 2014)

with Joe Lovano

• Trio Tapestry (ECM, 2019)

• Zorn, John, ed. (2000). Arcana: Musicians on Music. New York: Granary Books/Hips Road. ISBN 1-887123-27-X.