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Cameron Mizell

It’s easy to talk about where a musician comes from. In the case of guitarist Cameron Mizell, one need only pull out a map of the United States and locate St. Louis to answer that question. It’s far more difficult, however, to draw up the coordinates for where a musician has yet to travel. In the case of Mizell, to assert anything so two-dimensional would be like trying to flatten a diamond.

Now based in Brooklyn, Mizell has been part of the diverse New York City music scene for nearly two decades, performing in a wide variety of genres from experimental improvisation and solo jazz guitar to bluegrass musicals and salsa bands. His chameleonic musicianship, professionalism, and easygoing nature have made him an in-demand sideman and session guitarist. As a bandleader and solo artist, Mizell has released nine albums in the past 17 years, spanning the gamut from jazz-funk to Americana to avant-garde experimentalism, and has collaborated with or produced artists on dozens of more recordings. His latest solo effort, The Order of Things, is a cinematic trip through ambient and post-rock textures, melodies, and improvisations. Recorded in March and April of 2020, shortly after New York City’s COVID-19 lockdown procedures were put in place, the album grew from a need for balance and calm through slow, purposeful, meditative music that harks back to what New York Music Daily has rightly said of Mizell’s output in general: “Quietly and efficiently, Mizell has put together a remarkably tuneful, eclectic, understatedly cinematic body of work. In a world overpopulated by guys who play a million notes where one would do, Mizell’s economical, purposeful style stands out even more.”

Looking back on the many paths that came together to the elusive present, Mizell points to key way stations along the way. He cites early dance lessons as a turning point in that regard. Learning the fundamentals of counting time in dance impacted his development as a musician and attuned his developing ears to the vitality of sound. When it came to choosing an instrument to express that vitality, he found himself drawn to his mother’s old Yamaha classical guitar. “It was different than what everyone else was doing,” he recalls of what began a lifelong relationship, “and that made it feel a little special.”

While, at first, Mizell wasn’t inspired by anything other than availability, the guitar soon opened a gateway into listening journeys alongside musicians who would later shine as beacons of influence. Among those, he praises John Scofield for his phrasing, time feel, and deeply personal tone; Bill Frisell for his incorporation of Americana; Pat Metheny for his harmonic sense, the scope of his arrangements, and his depth of vision; and Grant Green for his groove and phrasing. Other teachers from a distance include Dexter Gordon, James Brown, David Gilmour/Pink Floyd, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Sam Cooke, and Marc Ribot.

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10
Album Review

Cameron Mizell: Memory/Imagination

Read "Memory/Imagination" reviewed by Jim Olin


Cameron Mizell's new album, Memory/Imagination, is an exciting collection of tracks that will spark the imagination and win over the heart. The composer/guitarist is certainly consistent in crafting records that are avant-garde and improvisational while stimulating emotionally. It's a creative balance that isn't easily achievable; many other artists veer too much towards one side. However, Mizell focuses on music as poetry in motion, and no words are needed for him to paint his pictures of the mind. The ...

14
Album Review

Cameron Mizell: Negative Spaces

Read "Negative Spaces" reviewed by Dave Wayne


A whole bunch of very accomplished guitarists out there have styles can be described cursorily as lying within a triangle that has John Scofield, Pat Metheny, and Bill Frisell at its vertices. There's nothing wrong with this. Scofield, Metheny, and Frisell are amazing, prolific, and highly influential. And even within these confines, there's a lot of music to explore. On Negative Spaces, guitarist Cameron Mizell (not to be confused with the record producer of the same name) really owns the ...

15
Album Review

Cameron Mizell: Negative Spaces

Read "Negative Spaces" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Cameron Mizell is not a well-known guitarist but he is a talented one. Working with just keyboards and drums on this CD he goes on an expansive excursion through the realms of jazz, progressive rock, funk and country. Just the first four tracks, which actually run together without a break, he goes through New Age meditation, slow-winding progressive rock, distorted psychedelia and finally twangy roadhouse country with Brad Whiteley switching expertly between electric piano and organ as needed ...

12
Album Review

Cameron Mizell: The Edge of Visibility

Read "The Edge of Visibility" reviewed by Jim Olin


How the mind liberally generates artistic transcendence is a phenomenal concept, and creating music is a customary form to express the ethereal otherworldliness of what is beyond the mundane. Guitarist Cameron Mizell's fearless spirit travels to a different cosmos with his album The Edge of Visibility. Mizell undauntedly rambles the peripheries of his imagination. The album epitomizes a vast and inventive sonic encounter, an unconventional plunge into subliminal escape and mood-altering cognizance. The melodic and stirring “These Sheets" ...

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127

Recording

Cameron Mizell - The EPic of Chester Bustamante

Cameron Mizell - The EPic of Chester Bustamante

Source: All About Jazz

For his second release, guitarist Cameron Mizell teams up with drummer Mike Fortune and keyboardist Brad Whiteley for the five song EP The EPic of Chester Bustamante“. The upbeat funk and creative improvisation is heavily influenced by and draws comparisons to The Meters, John Scofield, Grant Green, and Soulive.

Shortly after recording his first album (2004's self titled Cameron Mizell) in Indiana, Mizell relocated to Brooklyn, NY. He soon began playing with drummer Mike Fortune and developing material for a ...

“Quietly and efficiently, Mizell has put together a remarkably tuneful, eclectic, understatedly cinematic body of work. In a world overpopulated by guys who play a million notes where one would do, Mizell’s economical, purposeful style stands out even more.” — New York Music Daily

"Boasting an inviting sound and evincing a compelling dexterity in his original compositions, Brooklyn-based guitarist Cameron Mizell effortlessly mixes rock, blues, funk, country, Americana, and jazz with ingenuity, building up an inspired album that speaks with a proper voice without shutting up its main influences." - Filipe Freitas, JazzTrail.net

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Local Folklore

Destiny Records
2021

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Memory/Imagination

Destiny Records
2018

buy

The Edge of Visibility

Self Produced
2016

buy

Negative Spaces

Destiny Records
2016

buy

Tributary

Self Produced
2010

buy

Greenwood Waltz

From: Local Folklore
By Cameron Mizell

Echoing, Echoing

From: Negative Spaces
By Cameron Mizell

Videos

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