Amina Claudine Myers

Born in Blackwell, Arkansas,^[3] "Myers was brought up largely by her great-aunt, a schoolteacher, and her great-uncle, a carpenter by trade who played the clarinet, piano, and flute".^[3] She started taking piano lessons around the age of four, including at Sacred Hearts Catholic School, and when she was seven, her family moved to Roosevelt, a Black community outside of Dallas, Texas. Myers took piano and violin lessons, but eventually, partly for financial reasons, settled on the piano, taking weekly lessons of fifteen minutes each.^[4] She began to learn some European classical music at high school, but this was interrupted when she and the family moved back to Blackwell.^[5]

Myers majored in music education at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas.^[5] In her second year, she was invited to play at The Safari Room in Memphis, Tennessee.^[5] This engagement, however, was very brief, as her musical repertoire was too limited.^[5] After graduation, she moved in 1963 to Chicago, where she taught music at an elementary school.^[6] She also attended classes at Roosevelt University and worked with musicians such as Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons.^[7] She was one of the performers at the AACM's second concert.^[6] In the late 1960s, Myers added "Amina" to her name.^[8]

In 1976 Myers relocated to New York City,^[9] where she intensified her compositional work and expanded it into the realm of Off-Broadway productions. She also continued performing and recording as a pianist and organist. Around 1978 she began touring in Europe with the Lester Bowie Quintet and his New York Organ Ensemble.^[9]

As leader

• Poems for Piano: The Piano Music of Marion Brown (Sweet Earth, 1979)
• Song for Mother E with Pheeroan akLaff (Leo, 1980)
• Salutes Bessie Smith (Leo, 1980)
• The Circle of Time (Black Saint, 1983)
• Jumping in the Sugar Bowl (Minor Music, 1984)
• Country Girl (Minor Music, 1986)
• Amina (RCA Novus, 1987)
• In Touch (RCA Novus, 1989)
• Women In (E)Motion Festival (Tradition & Moderne, recorded 1988 released 2004)
• Augmented Variations (Amina C records, 2004)
• Sama Rou (Amina C records, 2016)
• Solace of the Mind (Red Hook Records, 2025)

With others

With Muhal Richard Abrams

• Lifea Blinec (Arista Novus, 1978)
• Spihumonesty (Black Saint, 1979)
• Duet (Black Saint, 1981)

With the Art Ensemble of Chicago

• Salutes the Chicago Blues Tradition (AECO, 1993)

With Arthur Blythe

• Blythe Spirit (Columbia, 1981)

With Lester Bowie

• African Children (Horo, 1978)
• The Fifth Power (Black Saint, 1978)
• The Organizer (DIW, 1991)
• Funky T. Cool T. (DIW, 1991)

With Frank Lowe

• Exotic Heartbreak (Soul Note, 1981)

With Maurice McIntyre

• Humility in the Light of the Creator (Delmark, 1969)

With Greg Osby

• Season of Renewal (JMT, 1990)

With Jim Pepper

• Afro Indian Blues (recorded 1991, released 2006)

With Wadada Leo Smith

• Central Park's Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens (Red Hook, 2024)

With Third Rail (James Blood Ulmer & Bill Laswell)

• South Delta Space Age (Antilles, 1995)

With Henry Threadgill

• X-75 Volume 1 (1979)
• Subject to Change (1985)
• Song Out of My Trees (1994)

With James Blood Ulmer

• Blue Blood (Innerythmic, 2000)