MELANIE CHARLES - Vocalist / Flutist / Composer
Melanie Charles is a Brooklyn born Haitian American singer, composer, flutist, producer, and curator whose work moves fluidly between jazz, soul, experimental music, and Haitian roots traditions. Through collage-like production, live sampling, improvisation, and storytelling, Charles has emerged as a distinct voice expanding the language of contemporary jazz and Black experimental music.
Her projects The Girl with the Green Shoes and Y’all Don’t Really Care About Black Women, released under the Verve Records imprint, established her as a progressive and genre-defying artist, earning recognition from publications including The New York Times and The Village Voice, which praised her “jazz-studded multi-instrumentalism” and “uncanny cohesion.”
A graduate of The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, Charles has collaborated and recorded with artists including Terri Lyne Carrington, Corinne Bailey Rae, Gorillaz, Mach-Hommy, Kassa Overall, and Nate Smith.
Her television appearances include performances alongside SZA on Saturday Night Live, as well as appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Vinyl.
Charles is also the founder of Make Jazz Trill Again, a multidisciplinary platform exploring improvisation, community, performance, and cultural exchange across generations and genres. Her recent work increasingly incorporates film, installation, and immersive performance as vehicles for examining identity, mental health, Blackness, and collective memory.
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