Best Coast Jazz Composers Series #10: Cory Wright Outfit

“Wright’s compositions hit the mark … one of those very special endeavors that excites, entertains and sustains interest. Each piece contains massive doses of pop and sizzle.” — All About Jazz
The music of Oakland-based reed player and composer Cory Wright encompasses an astonishingly broad range of sounds anyone would call jazz – fiery swing, beautifully intricate horn writing, and a sensitivity to both fun and brainy ways of driving the music foreword with collective improvisation, asymmetric grooves and dazzlingly virtuosic soloing. At times playfully irreverent and at others lovingly sympathetic to jazz traditions past and present, Wright’s music also embraces texture and abstraction and formal experimentation, and he is truly an innovator in creating novel ways for improvising musicians to interact in the moment. Among the Bay Area’s first-call musicians on saxophones and clarinets, here Wright is joined by his stellar ensemble, performing selections from his latest release “Apples and Oranges” and new compositions for duo, trio and quintet configurations.
Cory Wright – tenor saxophone, clarinets
Sheldon Brown – saxophones
Rob Ewing – trombone
Lisa Mezzacappa – acoustic bass
Jordan Glenn – drums, vibraphone
Reeds player Cory Wright, educated at Oberlin Conservatory 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. 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.