As a virtuosic improviser who’s collaborated with many of jazz’s greatest figures, Mimi Fox has earned her spot in the jazz guitar pantheon. But the jazz tradition is only one of the powerful currents feeding her music. With her 11th album as a leader or co-leader, This Bird Still Flies, Fox delivers a seamless but far-ranging album that’s breathtaking in its beauty, emotional immediacy and stylistic reach. The all acoustic recording captures a commanding artist in full - transforming folk tunes, jazz standards, original compositions and popular songs into exquisitely crafted improvisational vehicles. Recently signed by Taylor Guitars as an endorsing “partner,” she’s increasingly returned to her acoustic roots. As with all great musicians, Fox’s creative output is inextricably linked to her life off stage, and This Bird Still Flies is a dispatch from the other side of rough waters. A successful fight against breast cancer coupled with a devastating breakup left her determined to pursue her musical vision with renewed focus and intensity.

“It’s like a rebirth,” she says. “I’m in the best place of my life and I wanted my music to reflect that. One of the things that I promised myself is to not put any limits on my music. There’s so much music that I love and I refuse to be pigeonholed. I’m very proud to be a jazz musician, and yet it’s not all of who I am. Though no matter what I play, I’m an improviser.”

The album opens with the rollicking, low-down “Get Away Blues,” an original piece that serves as a warm embrace for long-time Fox fans and newcomers alike. She’s just as inventive on standards like Kenny Dorham’s classic “Blue Bossa,” which opens with a long impromptu passage that wends through a variety of textures and moods before eventually revealing the familiar melody. Her full, resonant tone, biting attack, and supple phrasing demonstrate exactly why Joe Pass declared that Fox “plays with tremendous fire. She can do pretty much anything she wants on the guitar.”

She displays her folky pastoral streak on the lovely soundscape “Twilight In the Mangroves,” a piece written for her friend Brad Wendkos, founder of the online guitar instruction company TrueFire, after an idyllic evening boating in the waters off Tampa. “Textures of Loving” is another dedication, though it’s a piece she’s revisiting from her first album, 1985’s Against the Grain. Written for her maternal grandparents, who came to America from Russia as young teenagers at the turn of the century, the minor key piece evokes the sorrows of the Old World and the new lives they built here.

Fox has made no secret of her love of the Beatles or the formative influence that the Fab Four played in stoking her passion for the guitar as a kid. Building off the San Francisco String Trio’s critically hailed 2017 project May I Introduce To You (Ridgeway Music), a track-by-track reimagining of Sgt. Pepper’s, she includes a ravishing interpretation of “Blackbird” and a deeply funky version of “Day Tripper” on baritone guitar.

“Lennon and McCartney wrote such strong melodies, and ‘Day Tripper’ has that unforgettable riff,” she says. “I love the challenge of taking something so familiar, and honoring it and putting your stamp on it. I really think in a songwriting class you could teach ‘Blackbird’ next to ‘Skylark.’”

Fox brings similar imagination to the American Songbook standards “You Don't Know What Love Is” and “There Is No Greater Love,” creating a mini-song cycle by plunging into the depths with the former and ascending to rhapsodic heights with the latter. The album’s title track, a statement of resilience, defiance and celebration in the face of adversity, is also the project’s most surprising, as Fox joins forces with Andy Timmons, a guitarist far better known for shredding with the glam metal band Danger Danger than for his unplugged performances. A former label mate of Fox’s from her days on Steve Vai’s Favored Nations, he acquits himself with grace, fire and sensitivity on her shapely and thoughtful piece. Fox closes the album with an elegiac version of “America the Beautiful,” a rendition that feels like a balm in troubled times.

While This Bird Still Flies is Fox’s first all-acoustic project, she’s made a point of featuring her work on steel string guitar from the beginning, starting with several unplugged tracks on her first album, Against the Grain. “I feel like when I play acoustic, there’s an immediacy to it,” she says. “I love my jazz box, and I have a voice on that, but the acoustic guitar was my first instrument, through my teenage years playing Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and Crosby, Still and Nash. Then I got into classical guitar, which I still love and play when I get the chance. It’s another side of my musical personality. I love the shading. I love the wood reverberating against my body. This album reflects more than half a century playing this instrument, and in a way it feels like coming home."

When Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play, he couldn't have foreseen the extraordinary San Francisco String Trio. The Bay Area super-group featuring guitarist Mimi Fox, bassist/vocalist Jeff Denson, and violinist Mads Tolling has found a consistently enthralling vehicle for musical exploration in the 1967 masterpiece. May I Introduce to You is the trio's debut album and a loving homage to the classic Beatles record on its 50th anniversary. The SF String Trio brings together three celebrated masters who have each recorded critically acclaimed albums as bandleaders. Much like the Beatles drew on an array of traditions and styles in crafting Sgt. Pepper's, the cooperative ensemble approaches each track as an opportunity to imbue supremely familiar songs with a sense of delight and surprise. The idea was to do something different to shake up these fantastic songs, but not just for the sake of doing something new, says Fox. We're all coming from a jazz background and we like to mix things up. The trio's emotional connection to Sgt. Pepper's is evident throughout May I Introduce to You, and every track sheds a bright and revealing light on the genius of the Beatles. Tolling transfuses some of Joe Cocker's gospel fervor into his ballad arrangement of With A Little Help From My Friends, and sets a good deal of Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds to a crunching 5/4 beat. Fox evokes George Harrison's sitar with a sleek modal interpretation of Within You Without You and delivers a ravishing solo rendition of She's Leaving Home. Denson's arrangement of Fixing A Hole incorporates his striking vocals, as does his multilayered unpacking of A Day In the Life, another tour de force that distills the song's essence while winding its way to a surprising climax, with Fox's twang replacing the famous last crashing chord.

"Standards, Old and New" is the second in a series of recordings of solo guitar gems that highlight Mimi's "consummate mastery" of the instrument and reveals the beauty and excitement of these classic compositions. From swinging and harmonically sophisticated, to lush and tender, this is a collection that is bound to inspire years of repeated listens. "...a prodigious talent who has not only mastered the traditional forms but has managed to reinvigorate them." - Guitar Player Magazine.

For the uninitiated, it's understandable to assume that the artists on Steve Vai's record label, Favored Nations, must be from the same hard-rocking, six-string shredding variety. But this is certainly not the case, as evidenced by the 2006 double-disc release by Mimi Fox, Perpetually Hip. A Bay Area-based guitarist, Fox is a jazz guitarist through and through -- and not fusion, either, as her main influences include such jazz greats as Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, and Grant Green. On Perpetually Hip, Fox follows a guideline for each disc -- the first sees Fox playing alongside a trio of New York musicians (pianist Xavier Davis, bassist Harvie S., and drummer Billy Hart), as the quartet mixes a few Fox originals with covers. The second disc, on the other hand, is solo, and comprised solely of interpretations of jazz standards. No flashy tricks here, just fantastically clean jazz playing, as evidenced by such disc one standouts as the album-opening title track and "While Bangkok Sleeps," as well such disc two highlights as Duke Ellington's "Caravan" and George Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me." The respected jazz publication Down Beat has been praising Fox's talents for years now (named "Rising Star" for three consecutive years), and it all comes together for the guitarist on Perpetually Hip.

Mimi Fox displays her appealing tone and ample chops on this 1999 studio session. She's ably backed by two different core groups: one with Yellowjackets Russell Ferrante (acoustic piano) and Will Kennedy (drums) teamed with John Witala (bass), and one with Kennedy and Joey DeFrancesco (organ). There's also a duet with Charlie Hunter on "Willow Weep for Me", and Angela Bofill contributes an effective vocal on Torme-Wells "Born to Be Blue". Mimi's song selection includes two originals, five jazz standards, two contemporary pop songs and one traditional folk song. She deserves credit for expanding her repertoire beyond the usual standards, although her originals, the attractively lilting "Vita's Lullaby" and the swinging "Mr. White's Blues", are actually more intriguing. Her version of "Cherokee" is also a highlight, with her blazing opening volley followed by brief piano, drum, and bass spotlights.