New music for jazz sextet by the Lisa Mezzacappa Six, inspired by Italo Calvino’s stories on the history of the universe – developed in a series of salon performances at Bird & Beckett beginning tonight and concluding Saturday, November 3rd.

Aaron Bennett, tenor sax
John Finkbeiner, guitar
Mark Clifford, vibes
Tim Perkis, electronics
Lisa Mezzacappa, bass
Jordan Glenn, drums

Bookstore Residency
& Work-in-Progress Salons
4 Thursdays at 7:30pm
April 19/May 24/July 5/Sept 13
$10 Suggested Donation

Concert Finale
Saturday, Nov 3 at 7:30pm
$20 cover charge

Bay Area bassist and composer Lisa Mezzacappa visits with her sextet for a five-concert residency beginning April 19th and ending November 3rd, to develop a new suite of music inspired by Italo Calvino’s extraordinary “Cosmicomics” stories.

Over a series of Thursday evening salons, Lisa and her colleagues will explore new music drawn from Calvino’s supremely imaginative play on incidents in the history of the universe and the invisible forces at work in the cosmos.

The salon series, which runs from April through September, concludes with a premiere of the complete work on Saturday, November 3rd. 

It is said that Mezzacappa’s sensibility as a composer “embraces the full panorama of jazz sound and feeling, from bluesy grooves to abstract soundscapes, playful collective improvisation and richly layered melodies that blend electric and acoustic textures.” Her suite of music for this same ensemble, avantNOIR, was drawn from crime novels by Hammett and Auster,  and earned a 4-1/2 star review in Downbeat Magazine in 2017. avantNOIR was performed at SFJazz as well as Bird & Beckett and other venues. We welcome her and her colleagues back to Bird & Beckett with unbridled anticipation.

Lisa Mezzacappa Six in performance at Bird & Beckett, 4/19/18 – photo (c) Angela Bennett