All that Jazz: Mimi Fox

–By Suzanne Corson

With fingers flying over the fretboard and passion in her heart, acclaimed jazz guitarist and composer Mimi Fox celebrates the release this month of her latest DVD, Mimi Fox: Live at the Palladium.

Fox has been named International Critics Poll winner in six consecutive Downbeat Magazine polls and has performed with luminaries such as Charlie Byrd, Branford Marsalis, and Diana Krall over her 43 years as a musician, in addition to her work as a leader on the bandstand as evidenced by this new disc.

Recorded in November 2009 at the Palladium in St. Petersburg, Florida, the DVD features both original compositions and favorite jazz standards, and solo pieces in addition to tunes with bassist Chris Enghauser and drummer Akira Tana.  Her hope for the disc is that the passion and intensity she has for the music comes through, and she succeeds in the ten tracks on Palladium.

The pleasantly infectious “Blues for 2″ opens the show and is one of three new compositions by Fox on the disc (the others are “Pack of Lies” and “Roses in January”). She and her players also perform a charming rendition of Rodgers and Hart’s “My Romance,” and an engaging and seductive take on “Caravan” by Duke Ellington, but this listener’s favorite was the lively “Yardbird Suite” (El De Barge and Charlie Parker). Fox takes to the stage alone for the lovely “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” and the final track, “Lullaby of the Leaves.”

An interview with Fox closes out the disc, where the North Bay resident discusses her feelings about jazz, her performing style, vulnerability, and what inspires her. She calls herself a “human sponge, picking up things, taking information in, and trying to create something beautiful, something edgy or something exciting.”

Fox elaborates on the importance of openness and vulnerability, especially as it relates to live performances. “It can help the music appeal to people who aren’t particularly jazz heads – that’s important to me. Not everyone grew up with jazz and has an appreciation for it.”

She notes the differences between vocal jazz, where “the words are a way in”, and the instrumental jazz she plays. Her passion, intensity and those flying fingers fetchingly invite listeners in.

A guitar player since the age of ten, she was twelve when she first performed live at a coffeehouse. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area at 23 and upon arrival, performed at the dearly departed Artemis Café. She’s grateful for those predominantly female audiences from her early days, which were loving and supportive. “But if you’re going to mature as an artist, you need to get your ass kicked,” she quips. 

Mature she has, with gigs at venues from Yoshi’s in Oakland to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and appearances at the Monterey Jazz Festival as well as those in Montreal, Perth, and Ireland. She’s also appeared in Japan, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, and all over Europe. 

She feels an obligation to her audiences and to herself as a musician to kick her game up each time. “It doesn’t matter if I’m jetlagged, barely had time to shower, had a fight with my girlfriend or manager…I have to walk on stage and let go all of that and play.” With her dedication and expertise, she provides a synergistic experience for her audiences.

In addition to performing worldwide, Fox is an instructor and advisor of the guitar program at Jazzschool in Berkeley, an adjunct professor at NYU, and has taught master classes at jazz festivals and universities. She’s also recorded several instructional DVDs with TrueFire, producers of the Live at the Palladium disc.  

This summer will find her promoting Palladium in California, and she hits the East Coast in the fall. She’ll also be working on a new instructional DVD, and in the future, another studio recording will follow 2006′s Perpetually Hip (Favored Nations).

“I experience the world through my ears,” she says in the on-disc interview. “I hear music when I feel things, feel music starting to run through me.” Fortunately for us, her experiences provide a rich soundtrack for our lives.

The DVD release party takes place Tuesday, June 15 at Yoshi’s in Oakland. For more information, visit www.yoshis.com. And visit Mimi Fox online at www.mimifoxjazzguitar.com.

Suzanne Corson is a writer and editor from the San Francisco Bay Area.