Ambidextrous crossover artist and National Endowment for the Arts grantee Donovan Mixon, is a self described citizen of the world. He presently lives in Chicago performing in clubs, concert halls and festivals with his World Jazz Quintet as well with the GBME - Great Black Music Ensemble of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) of which he is a recent inductee. Here is what Brad Walseth: Jazz Critic at jazzchicago.net said about Donovan’s Istanbul recording, Culmination, “Mixon's sliding rapid picking is reminiscent of fellow Chicago world music traveler Fareed Haque. Culmination is a highly engaging release from a guitarist/composer with a distinct style who I hope to hear much more from in the future.” In 2019, he released We Play When We Play, a compilation of tracks from two previous recordings, his first Look Ma, No Hands! recorded by his Boston band featuring saxophonist George Garzone and Language of the Emotions, his Milan quartet that featured the enormous talent of Eddie Henderson on trumpet. Donovan says that perhaps the CD recording Free With Lee on which he appears with the great alto saxophonist Lee Konitz for Philology Records would be one of the many summits of his career. Mixon lived abroad for an extended period as a freelance performing artist, clinician and college professor (Istanbul Bilgi University, University of Bologna), performing at major jazz festivals (Umbria, Monticello, Istanbul, Ankara) and as a clinician at educational institutions (B.A.U. - Istanbul, C.E.U. - Budapest, Shanghai American School – China, School of the Arts Singapore). Perhaps the apex of his academic career occurred when Advance Music published his critically acclaimed music text Performance Ear Training. The former Berklee College of Music professor is also the author of the award winning novel Ahgottahandleonit, published in 2017 by Cinco Puntos Press. Info, reviews and story-driven audio tracks can be found at donovanmixonwriter.com. |
AACM 50TH ANNIVERSARY 2019
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Donovan Mixon's Hybrid Project
Koc University, Istanbul - Turkey
Koc University, Istanbul - Turkey
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Video key:
0:03 Early influences 0:31 Who were my models? 1:46 Why do I make music? 3:19 Ultimate purpose as a musical artist? 3:43 How do I describe my music? 4:40 What was it like to record with Lee Konitz? 6:24 What am I trying to do as a teacher? 7:30 What is Performance Ear Training? |