The Squid's Ear Magazine


Mezzacappa, Lisa (Bennett / Finkbeiner / Winant / Mezzacappa / Perkis / Glenn): avantNOIR (Clean Feed)

Influenced by noir crime novels from the 20s set in the Bay Area, bassist Mezacappa wrote these sophisticated and lyrical compositions for selected scenes or characters, performed by the superb sextet of William Winant, Tim Perkis, Aaron Benett, John Finkbeiner, & Jordan Glenn.
 

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Personnel:



Aaron Bennett-tenor saxophone

John Finkbeiner-electric guitar

William Winant-vibraphone, percussion, Foley

Lisa Mezzacappa-acoustic bass, samples

Tim Perkis-electronics

Jordan Glenn-drums


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UPC: 5609063004014

Label: Clean Feed
Catalog ID: CF401
Squidco Product Code: 23380

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2017
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded by James Frazier at New, Improved Recording, Oakland CA, November 28Ð29, 2015. Additional engineering by John Finkbeiner. Mixed by Myles Boisen at Guerilla Recording, Oakland CA. Mastered by Myles Boisen at Headless Buddha Mastering Lab, Oakland CA. Produced by Lisa Mezzacappa

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"San Francisco Bay Area bassist and composer Lisa Mezzacappa draws inspiration from a wide range of sources in her music, from film to visual art to science. Her newest release, avantNOIR, is a suite of compositions for jazz sextet based on noir crime fiction-classic works by Dashiell Hammett set in San Francisco, and later works by Paul Auster that are part of his New York Trilogy. Mezzacappa probes the psychological depths of these stories, creating musical profiles of characters like Big Flora from Hammett's The Big Knockover, and Daniel Quinn from Auster's City of Glass. She also uses clues from detective's cases-addresses, aliases, phone numbers, hotel rooms-and translates them into musical structures, melodies and rhythms, in a kind of postmodern jazz serialism. The result is a contemporary jazz gem influenced as much by Charles Ives and Pierre Boulez as by Eric Dolphy and Henry Threadgill.

Mezzacappa's partners in crime couldn't be better suited to the challenge of navigating her sometimes gnarly, sometimes spacious but always imaginative music. Guitarist John Finkbeiner and tenor saxophonist Aaron Bennett were regulars in the California edition of Adam Lane's Full Throttle Orchestra, and have been part of Mezzacappa's Bait & Switch quartet for nine years. Jordan Glenn, of Fred Frith's current trio, is one of the Bay Area's most in-demand and versatile drummers. Tim Perkis is a pioneer of laptop improvisation, and adds a supremely sensitive layer of sound to the compositions. And veteran percussionist William Winant, well known in contemporary music circles and a longtime associate of avant-jazz heroes John Zorn, Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell and others, plays vibraphone and Foley sound effects-rotary phone, typewriter, hotel desk bells-as part of the record's rich and mysterious sonic landscape."-Clean Feed


Artist Biographies

"I currently live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I grew up in Long Beach CA. Mother was an artist, father a labor organizer.

On heavy rotation at home as a youngster was Dave Brubeck, Ramsey Lewis, Paul Desmond, the Beatles and Rolling stones..

As a teenager I was listening to alot of speed metal, punk rock, heavy metal and jazz.

I decided to dedicate my life to music after hearing John Coltrane. I hoped to one day give others the feeling I felt when hearing his music, perhaps an impossible goal, but a journey worth making as far as I can tell.

I earned a BA in music at Cal State Long Beach with an emphasis on classical saxophone performance where I had the pleasure of studying with Leo Potts, John Prince and many other great musicians.

I then earned an MFA at California Institute of the Arts in Jazz performance where I studied with many masters including Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Novros, Larry Koonse, Joe Labarbera, Charlie Haden and Pedro Eustache. At Cal Arts I also had the fortune to study music from Bali, Java, Ghana, and India. I have more recently studied and performed Japanese Gagaku music as well.

Since graduating from Cal Arts, I have had the pleasure of making music with a wide variety of amazing musicians including Wadada Leo Smith, Peter Kowald, John Butcher, Donald Robinson, Marco Eneidi, Weasel Walter, Adam Lane, Aphrodesia, Lagos-Roots, Mykal Rose, The Rova Saxophone Quartet, William Hooker and many others. I lead my own groups Go-Go-Fightmaster, electro-magnetic trans-personal orchestra and I currently perform in the Oakland Active Orchestra , Lisa Mezzacappa's Bait & Switch, Vijay Anderson Quartet, Guerilla Hi-Fi Black Water Gold, and Touch and Go Sextet I have been very fortunate to have performed in many great clubs and festivals across the U.S. and abroad including recent appearances at the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Novarra Jazz Festival in Italy. I have composed for large ensembles, chamber groups, plays, films, dance performances, wind quintet, saxophone quartets and trios as well as pieces for solo instruments."

-Aaron Bennett Website (http://www.aarondavidbennett.com/about.php)
3/13/2024

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"John is an engineer and multi-instrumentalist. He has studied engineering with Myles Boisen, guitar with Morris Acevedo, Myles Boisen, and Richard Festinger, and musical drinking straw with Aaron Bennett. John has worked on records with Fred Frith, Crime, Knights of the New Crusade, Tango No. 9, Aphrodesia, Edmund Welles, and many others. He plays guitar in many bands, including Go-Go Fightmaster and Bait and Switch."

-New, Improved Recording (http://newimprovedrecording.com/?page_id=137)
3/13/2024

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"In 2016, Winant was awarded a large unrestricted grant from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts in recognition for his groundbreaking work as a contemporary percussionist. In 2014 he received a Grammy nomination for his recording of John Cage's historic solo work, 27' 10.554" for a percussionist, on Micro Fest Records.

He has collaborated with some of the most innovative and creative musicians of our time, including John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, Frank Zappa, Keith Jarrett, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, James Tenney, Terry Riley, Cecil Taylor, Gerry Hemingway, Mark Dresser, Barry Guy, Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, Steve Reich and Musicians, Nexus, Charles Wuorinen, Jean-Philippe Collard, Frederic Rzewski, Ursula Oppens, Joan LaBarbara, Annea Lockwood, Danny Elfman/Oingo Boingo, Sonic Youth, Marc Ribot, Keith Rowe, Joey Barron, Bill Frisell, Yo-Yo Ma, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Lawrence "Butch" Morris, and the Kronos String Quartet.

He has recorded and toured worldwide with his own groups including ROOM, w/Chris Brown and Larry Ochs, CHALLENGE, w/Anthony Braxton and David Rosenboom, WAKE, w/Frank Gratkowski and Chris Brown, the ABEL/STEINBERG/WINANT TRIO, and the WILLIAM WINANT PERCUSSION GROUP.

He is principal percussionist with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, he has been closely associated with NYC composer John Zorn, and has made numerous recordings, and performed in many projects throughout the world with the composer. Starting in 1995 he has been the percussionist with the avant-rock band Mr. Bungle, has made two recordings ("Disco Volante" and "California" on Warner Brothers), and has toured throughout the world with this group. For many years he had worked with composer Lou Harrison, recording and premiering many of his works, and in March of 1997 he participated in the world premiere of Lou Harrison's quintet "Rhymes with Silver" featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Mark Morris Dance Group, and has toured the piece throughout the United States and Great Britain.

In the fall of 2011, he joined Mike Patton's Italian pop music project "Mondo Cane" which features a 12 piece band + string orchestra, and have recently completed tours of South America and Australia.

In the fall of 2003, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mr. Winant, along with composers Takehisa Kosugi and Christian Wolff, created music for a series of eight special "Events" staged by Merce Cunningham and Dancers at London's Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Winant continued to tour throughout Europe and the United States with the dance company until 2009

He has made over 200 recordings, covering a wide variety of genres, including music by Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, John Zorn, Butch Morris, James Newton, Frank Gratkowski, Pauline Oliveros, Luc Ferrari, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Danny Elfman ("Batman Returns"), Siouxse and the Banshees, Secret Chiefs 3, ICP, Han Bennik, The Ex, White Out with Jim O'Rourke, Lou Reed, Thurston Moore, and Mike Patton.

[...]

Mr. Winant has premiered many new works written specifically for him, by such noted composers as John Cage, Christian Wolff, Lou Harrison, John Zorn, Zeena Parkins, Bun-Ching Lam, Barbara Monk Feldman, Hi-Kyung Kim, Roscoe Mitchell, Wendy Reid, Ralph Shapey, Peter Garland, Michael Byron, Paul Dresher, Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, Chris Brown, David Rosenboom, Larry Polansky, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, Terry Riley, Fred Frith, Somei Satoh, and Wadada Leo Smith.

Mr. Winant has been featured as a guest artist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (under the direction of Pierre Boulez), the San Francisco Symphony, and the Berkeley Symphony (Kent Nagano, director), as well as at Cabrillo Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, SF Jazz Festival, Central Park Summerstage, Ravinia Festival, Salzburg Festival, Donaueschingen Festival, Victoriaville, Holland Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Ojai Festival, Sonar Festival, All Tomorrow's Parties, Taklos, Other Minds Festival, Lincoln Center, Melt Down Festival, Royal Festival Hall, Library of Congress, The Barbican, The Kennedy Center, Paris Opera, Disney Hall, Miller Theater Composer Portraits Series, Merkin Hall, Guggenheim Museum, and Brooklyn Academy of Music.

For ten years he was principal percussionist with the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra (Dennis Russell Davies, director), and timpanist with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra 1985-1988 (Nicholas McGegan, director).

He is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and teaches at Mills College and the University of California at Berkeley. For eight years Mr. Winant was Artist-in-Residence at Mills College with the critically acclaimed Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio. Formed in 1984, the ASW Trio has premiered over 25 new works for violin, piano, and percussion at major festivals and recitals throughout the world. Their recordings can be heard on the New Albion, Tzadik, and CRI/New World labels."

-William Winant Website (http://williamwinant.com/#section1)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Lisa Mezzacappa is a San Francisco Bay Area-based bassist, bandleader, composer, curator and producer. An active collaborator in the Bay Area music community for more than a dozen years, she leads her own groups Bait & Switch, the Interlopers, Nightshade, Eartheaters and the Lisa Mezzacappa Trio, and co-leads the ensembles BODABODA, duo B., Cylinder, the Mezzacappa-Phillips Duo, and the Caribbean folk band Les Gwan Jupons. Lisa has released her music on the Clean Feed, NoBusiness, Leo, NotTwo, Evander, Odd Shaped Case and Edgetone record labels, and has recorded as a sideperson for the Tzadik, Kadima and Porto Franco labels. She collaborates frequently on cross-disciplinary projects in sound installation, film/video, sculpture and public music/art.

As curator, she programs the annual JazzPOP concert seres at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, now in its 10th year; and a live cinema series, Mission Eye and Ear, at Artists' Television Access. She founded the Monday Makeout creative music series in the Mission District of San Francisco, and programs the Best Coast Jazz Composers series as a member of the artistic committee San Francisco's Center for New Music. In 2012 she started the "Festival-of-Us," a semi-annual festival celebrating Bay Area creative jazz and improvised music. Recent projects include an avant-folk string band, the Interlopers; Eartheaters, a trio with Brooklyn vocalist Fay Victor; and BODABODA, a cross-planetary collaboration with Venice reed player/composer Piero Bittolo Bon. In fall 2015 she premieres Glorious Ravage, a multi-media song cycle for large ensemble with commissioned films, inspired by the writings of Victorian lady adventurers.

Lisa has been artist-in-residence at Djerassi Resident Artists Program (2008, 2013), Headlands Center for the Arts (2006, 2015), the Banff International Jazz Workshop (2000), and the Painted Bride Arts Center (2000). She holds an MA in ethnomusicology from UC Berkeley (2003), and a BA in music from the University of Virginia (1997). She has performed at countless Bay Area venues including Intersection for the Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SFMOMA, Yoshi's, the Jazzschool, and the de Young Museum, San Francisco; as well as the Earshot Jazz Festival, Seattle; the Montreal Jazz Festival and Victoriaville Festival de Musique Actuelle, Canada; the Monterey Jazz Festival, CA; Moers Festival, Germany; and Novara Jazz Festival, Italy.

Lisa has been awarded grants by the MAP Fund, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, American Composers Forum, the City of Oakland, Meet the Composer and Southern Exposure/the Andy Warhol Foundation. She performs as a sideperson in original jazz, improv and chamber ensembles led by estemmed bandleaders and West Coast musical visionaries, like Phillip Greenlief, Aaron Novik, Beth Custer, Randy McKean, Marco Eneidi, Vijay Anderson, Aaron Bennett, Myles Boisen, Steve Adams, Graham Connah, Jon Raskin, Cory Wright and Ross Hammond, and collaborates often with Darren Johnston, Vinny Golia, Katy Stephan, Aram Shelton, Kjell Nordeson, Murray Campbell, Jason Levis, Dina Maccabee, Noah Phillips, Rob Ewing, Kasey Knudsen, Myles Boisen, Sam Ospovat, John Hanes, and many many others."

-Lisa Mezzacappa Website (http://www.lisamezzacappa.com/bio.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Tim Perkis has been working in the medium of live electronic and computer sound for many years, performing, exhibiting installation works and recording in North America,Europe and Japan. His work has largely been concerned with exploring the emergence of life-like properties in complex systems of interaction.

In addition, he is a well known performer in the world of improvised music, having performed on his electronic improvisation instruments with hundreds of artists and groups, including Chris Brown, John Butcher, Eugene Chadbourne, Fred Frith, Gianni Gebbia, Frank Gratkowski, Luc Houtkamp, Yoshi Ichiraku, Matt Ingalls, Joelle Leandre, Gino Robair, ROVA saxophone quartet, Elliott Sharp, Leo Wadada Smith and John Zorn. Ongoing groups he has founded or played in include the League of Automatic Music Composers and the Hub -- pioneering live computer network bands -- and Rotodoti, the Natto Quartet, Fuzzybunny, All Tomorrow's Zombies and Wobbly/Perkis/Antimatter.

He has taught at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and the California College of the Arts (CCA); has been composer-in-residence at Mills College in Oakland California, artist-in-residence at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center, and designed musical tools and toys at Paul Allen's legendary thinktank, Interval Research. In 2013 he was a resident fellow at the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Research (IMéRA) of the University of Aix-Marseille in France.

His checkered career as a researcher and engineer has brought him a variety of interesting projects: creating data sonification displays for research physicists and biologists in France; designing museum displays for science and music museums in San Francisco, Toronto and Seattle; creating artificial-intelligence based auction tools for business; working on mobile phone based support systems for the blind; consulting on multimedia art presentation networks for the SF Art Commission and SF Airport; writing software embedded in toys and other consumer products; and creating new tools for sound and video production, research and analysis.

Recordings of his work are available on several labels: Artifact,Tzadik, New World, Metalanguage, Rastascan, Limited Sedition, Kajira,482, Lucky Garage and Praemedia (USA); EMANEM, Leo(UK); Sonore and Meniscus(France); Curva Minore and Snowdonia(Italy); Pogriff(Canada); ALKU(Spain); XOR(Netherlands); Creative Sources(Portugal).

He is also producer and director of a feature-length documentary on musicians and sound artists in the San Francisco Bay area called NOISY PEOPLE (2007), and the ongoing audio podcast NOISY PEOPLE (2015- )."

-Tim Perkis Website (http://www.perkis.com/_site/about/index.html)
3/13/2024

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"Jordan Glenn is a drummer, percussionist, composer, band leader, conductor, video maker, and general craftsman who lives in Oakland, California.

Jordan Glenn spent his formative years in Oregon drawing cartoons, taking dance classes from his aunt, and putting on plays with his sisters. As he got older he began making movies with his friends and studying jazz, classical, and rock music. In 2003 Glenn received a bachelor's degree in Jazz Studies from the University of Oregon.

In 2006 he relocated to the Bay Area, received a masters degree from Mills College and since has worked closely with Fred Frith (FF Trio and Gravity Band), William Winant, Zeena Parkins (The Adorables), Roscoe Mitchell, ROVA Sax Quartet, Ben Goldberg, Todd Sickafoose, John Schott, Dominique Leone, Aaron Novik, Darren Johnston, Aram Shelton, Cory Wright, Lisa Mezzacappa, Karl Evangelista, Michael Coleman, Matthew Welch, Rhys Chatham and the bands Jack O' The Clock, Arts & Sciences, Young Nudist, 20 Minute Loop, Beep!, tUnE-yArDs, and the Oakland Active Orchestra. He also leads and conducts the project Mindless Thing, a collaboration with poet/free-jazzer/sage Jim Ryan, as well as the long standing trio Wiener Kids and the ten piece expansion, The Wiener Kids Family Band."

-Jordan Glenn Website (http://jordanglennmusic.com/)
3/13/2024

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Track Listing:



1. Fillmore Street 3:13

2. The Ballad Of Big Flora 7:05

3. Army Street 3:49

4. Medley On The Big Knockover 9:53

5. A Bird In The Hand 7:25

6. Quinn's Serenade 6:33

7. Ghosts (Black And White, Then Blue) 8:20

8. Babel 7:58

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Sextet Recordings
West Coast/Pacific US Jazz
Clean Feed
Melodic and Lyrical Jazz
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