The Squid's Ear Magazine


Green Mitchell Trio (Wright / Mezzacappa / Levis): Nature Channel (Queen Bee Records)

Expanding the possibilities of the saxophone-bass-drums trio, multi-reedist and composer Cory Wright leads bassist Lisa Mezzacappa and drummer Jason Levis in his Green Mitchell Trio's long-awaited follow-up, recording in the studio in Oakland, California, weaving songful melodies, high-energy free improv, intricate dissonances, and kinetic interplay for five lyrically inclined conversations.
 

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Personnel:



Cory Wright-tenor saxophone, bas clarinet

Lisa Mezzacappa-acoustic bass

Jason Levis-drums


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Label: Queen Bee Records
Catalog ID: QB - 006
Squidco Product Code: 35855

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Guerilla Recordings, in Oakland, California, on August 8th, 2023, by Myles Boison.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Nature Channel is the latest release by San Francisco Bay Area multi-reedist and composer Cory Wright's Green Mitchell Trio. The long awaited follow up to the trio's self-titled Edgetone Records debut, Nature Channel is a diverse collection of pieces imagining new possibilities for the classic sax-bass-drums trio. Songful melodies, high-energy free improvisation, driving (acoustic) metal, rippling spaciousness, and finely crafted dissonances combine to create five distinct sound worlds for the trio's explorations.

Wright's Green Mitchell collaborators,bassist Lisa Mezzacappa and drummer Jason Levis are each powerful and enduring contributors to the Bay Area creative music world. Their omnivorous approach to musical styles and materials makes them a perfect fit for Wright's compositional and performance sensibilities, and together, the three continue to seek new modes of interplay, often finding original ways to express the ineffable."-Queen Bee Records


Artist Biographies

"Reeds player Cory Wright, educated at Oberlin College and the University of Southern California, has been involved in both the jazz and creative music worlds for the past 20 years, including time spent in New York, Los Angeles and his current home in the San Francisco bay area. His recent projects reflect his interest in blurring the distinction between composed and improvised material and in combining the harmonious with the atonal, and groove with the arrhythmic.

Cory has played in ensembles lead by Anthony Braxton, Vinny Golia, Eddie Gale, Adam Rudolph and Yusef Lateef. He is currently a member of bay area groups Bristle, Wiener Kids, the Nathan Clevenger Group and the Oakland Active Orchestra, and leads his own projects Green Mitchell and the Cory Wright Outfit."

-Cory Wright Website (http://www.corywrightmusic.com/ographies.html)
3/5/2025

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)
3/5/2025

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

"Ph.D. and M.A. in Composition, UC Berkeley; B.A. in Music, Naropa University. Two-time Meet the Composer award recipient; Eisner Prize for Music winner; Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (UC Berkeley); Interaktion Festival finalist (Berlin), drummer and composer JASON LEVIS has led and been a collaborator in numerous jazz, improvised music, and chamber ensembles in the San Francisco Bay Area and Berlin, Germany. These include Joseph's Bones; duo B.; Junior Reggae; the Lost Shapes; the Berlin Boom Orchestra; the Nathan Clevenger Group, and many more. Through these avenues he has been a part of over two-dozen record releases, bridging a multitude of musical styles. He is an active performer on the drum set in both art and popular music settings and has extensive national and international performance experience. He is currently a professor at the California Jazz Conservatory, as well as gives private lessons throughout the bay area."

-Berkeley University (https://music.berkeley.edu/people/jason-levis)
3/5/2025

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


Track Listing:



1. Sunday Monday 7:14

2. Lumps 4:24

3. Nature Channel 5:23

4. Valk 13:36

5. Langourie 5:23

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Jazz & Improvisation Based on Compositions
Free Improvisation
Melodic and Lyrical Jazz
West Coast/Pacific US Jazz
Trio Recordings
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

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The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

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