The Charlottesville Jazz Society And Wtju-fm Present Lisa Mezzacappa’s Avantnoir at Jefferson School African American Heritage Center

The Charlottesville Jazz Society and WTJU are pleased to welcome bassist and composer and U-Va graduate Lisa Mezzacappa back to Charlottesville, bringing her lush and layered avantNOIR ensemble as part of its first East Coast tour. avantNOIR is a suite of compositions for jazz sextet inspired by “noir” genre fiction set in New York City (where Mezzacappa was born and raised) and the San Francisco Bay Area (where she now resides). avantNOIR is a musical companion to Paul Auster’s crime stories from his New York Trilogy of the 1980s, as well as the West Coast classic hard-boiled detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett. The music progresses like a detective’s case, using clues and imagery from the crime novels such as maps, letters, messages and relationships between characters and places, to create compositions with acoustic and electric sounds, and composed and improvised material. The resulting recording is a contemporary jazz gem and was awarded four and a half stars (out of five) in the most recent Downbeat Magazine....

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The Charlottesville Jazz Society and WTJU are pleased to welcome bassist and composer and U-Va graduate Lisa Mezzacappa back to Charlottesville, bringing her lush and layered avantNOIR ensemble as part of its first East Coast tour. avantNOIR is a suite of compositions for jazz sextet inspired by “noir” genre fiction set in New York City (where Mezzacappa was born and raised) and the San Francisco Bay Area (where she now resides). avantNOIR is a musical companion to Paul Auster’s crime stories from his New York Trilogy of the 1980s, as well as the West Coast classic hard-boiled detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett. The music progresses like a detective’s case, using clues and imagery from the crime novels such as maps, letters, messages and relationships between characters and places, to create compositions with acoustic and electric sounds, and composed and improvised material. The resulting recording is a contemporary jazz gem and was awarded four and a half stars (out of five) in the most recent Downbeat Magazine.

Called “a Bay Area treasure” by KQED public radio, Lisa has been an active part of California’s vibrant experimental music community for more than 15 years. Her activities as a composer and bandleader include ethereal chamber music, electro-acoustic works, music for large ensemble, and collaborations with film and dance.

Mezzacappa’s partners in crime couldn’t be better suited to the challenge of navigating imaginative music. Guitarist John Finkbeiner and tenor saxophonist Aaron Bennett 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 percussionist Mark Clifford, an outstanding composer in his own right, plays vibraphone and employs various sound effects—rotary phone, typewriter, hotel desk bells—as part of the record’s rich sonic landscape.

Tickets to the 7 pm concert by Lisa Mezzacappa’s avantNoir at The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center on October 15th are available in advance online only at avantnoir.eventbrite.com. General admission is $15; $12 for paid supporters of The Charlottesville Jazz Society, and $10 for all students. All tickets will be $20 at the door. For more information visit Cvillejazz.org, or call Gary at (434) 249-6191. And be sure to listen for Lisa’s music on WTJU, 91.1 FM.

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