Meilana Gillard

Gillard, since relocating to Northern Ireland in 2012, has performed with Liane Carroll, Darren Beckett,  Phil Robson, Tom Harrison, Gene Calderazzo, John Leighton, Joseph Leighton and Conor Murray and recorded with Quentin Collins, RBG Trio, and Comrade Hat.  Before moving to the UK/Ireland, she lived in NYC and recorded/performed with Charli Persip (Quintet and Big Band), Tyshawn Sorey, Christian McBride, Diva.  Her debut album ‘Day One’ was released on Greg Osby’s Inner Circle Music label in 2009.   Her second release ‘Dream Within a Dream’ received many great reviews and landed on Marlbank & one of Jazzwise (Brian Priestley) top 10 lists for 2017. She has played at Dizzy’s Club, Jazz Standard, Blue Note NYC, Birdland, Minton’s Playhouse, the Vortex, Pizza Express , The Barbican, and at festivals such as Jazz Mobile, Love Supreme, London Jazz Festival, Brilliant Corners, and Cork Jazz Festivals.  She is often lauded for her huge, old-school tenor sound but also for thriving in a wide-spectrum of styles, displaying endless ideas. Also notable as a composer, she has been awarded commissions from Moving On Music and Improvised Music Company.

Meilana is also a vocalist leading her own quartet and her Funk/Soul outfit ‘The Funkitects’.

"...exquisite-toned Tenor/Alto..” - Mike Flynn, JAZZWISE

"Gillard’s gutsy full-toned tenor saxophone lines sweeping majestically like a West Coast surfer…” - Nigel Slee, JAZZWISE

“Gillard's tough tenor confident and full of ideas” - Stephen Graham,  MARLBANK.NET

"… Gillard is a gutsy, inventive player with a forceful melodic sense and an open, old-school tenor sound." "...her sound embraces both the guts and invention of the classic US saxophone tradition and the eclecticism and genre-blindness of the European jazz sensibility." – Cormac Larkin, IRISH TIMES

“A tenor player who marries old school, blues-based melodicism with a more modern edge—somewhere between Coleman Hawkins and David Murray—“ "...her inventive play is consistently compelling." - Ian Patterson, ALL ABOUT JAZZ

Artist website: www.meilanaontenor.com
Artist Facebook: www.facebook.com/meilanaontenor
Artist Twitter: www.twitter.com/meilanaontenor