Veteran jazz saxophonist and composer Dennis Mitcheltree recently released his 6th album as a leader, Golden Rule. The album “delights and amuses while keeping the mind fueled and geared up […] Mitcheltree’s tenor sax tone is warm, rounded and Sonny Rollins-like, but adorning a slightly trickier mind. We need music like this, as diverting philosophical salve in dire time,” writes Kevin Lynch in Milwaukee’s Shepherd Express. Critics have described Mitcheltree’s playing as “soulful, swinging, and street smart” (Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide) and “aggressively adventurous and most expressive” (Nancy Ann Lee, Jazz Times), and Jared Donze (Iowa City Icon) called him “a master storyteller with the tenor sax.”
Mitcheltree was born and raised in Wisconsin, picking up the oboe and saxophone at age 12. He studied at Berklee College of Music, before moving to New York City in 1987 where he became a mainstay of the jazz scene, and relocating to Los Angeles in 2007. He has performed and recorded with masters of the jazz world: Clark Terry, Billy Taylor, George Cables, Bill Holman, Bob Moses, Jim McNeely, Howard Johnson, Gary Bartz, Kenny Werner, James Williams, Don Sickler, Charli Persip, Ronnie Matthews, Pete Yellin, Richie Cole, Bill Holman, Pete Christlieb, Doug Webb, Carl Saunders, Joe Labarbera, John Clayton, Christian Jacob and Bruce Forman along with contemporaries Uri Caine, Ingrid Jensen, Johannes Wallmann, Andy Milne and David Binney.
Mitcheltree is the Artistic Director for the American Music Group, widely known for the INFLUENCES series presented at Carnegie Hall. A former student of Joe Viola, Billy Pierce, Jim McNeely, George Garzone and Joe Lovano, Mitcheltree is also a renowned jazz teacher and clinician of jazz improvisation, harmony, composition and saxophone/woodwinds. He teaches privately and as a guest artist/clinician/lecturer at universities and jazz education programs worldwide.