Molly grew up in Salem, Oregon and came to the Bay Area in the 1970s to study at Mills College, where she discovered Pandit Pran Nath, Terry Riley, and W.A. Mathieu, all of whom have had a lasting impact on her music. She worked with Bobby McFerrin in the 80s, helping him audition singers and then becoming one of the original members of his groundbreaking group, Voicestra. Since then she’s worked with tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, choreographer June Watanabe, pioneering performance artist George Coates, and vocalist extraordinaire Linda Tillery. “I’m an improviser,” Molly says. “It runs throughout my life. Sometimes I think about what Anthony Braxton said about improvisation in jazz. ‘If you don’t make a mistake, you’re making a mistake.’ I love that.” The East Bay Express describes her voice as “a fluid, birdsong alto, winding and lilting, with barely a hint of vibrato; a voice like the woody middle register of a clarinet.” 

Molly describes her music as “extended jazz.” Her repertoire features her original compositions as well as less-often heard jazz tunes from straight-ahead, modal and “free jazz” genres (such as works by Charles Mingus, Joe Zawinul, and Leon Thomas/Pharoah Sanders). Molly’s performances also include elements of North Indian raga singing, “other worldly” music coming out of free-form improvisation that is laced with experimental vocal techniques, and some twists and turns on traditional folk and contemporary pop songs.

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