The Melba Liston Collection primarily documents her careers as arranger, composer, and educator rather than her accomplishments as a trombonist. It contains lead sheets to her own and other people’s compositions and manuscript scores of many of her arrangements for Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, and Mary Lou Williams, among others. One extensive series contains numerous arrangements for Randy Weston, and her late computer scores for him are also present.

Liston’s career as an arranger for recording companies—especially Motown—and for performers such as Marvin Gaye, Ruth Brown, Gloria Lynne, and others, is highlighted in most jazz reference books. Arrangements for performers can be found among her scores, although details about the specific arrangements are often cryptic. Also included in her score collection are musical arrangements and lead sheets dating from her years spent as an educator in Jamaica, although once again, related documentation is sparse or lacking.

Liston's surviving papers document very little of her life, reflecting mainly on her music, which to her was all-important. Performers will find her scores and lead sheets useful. Potential biographers will find it necessary to rely on secondary sources and interviews to place her music in its historical context.