$15 admission includes a delicious lunch buffet served up by Café 4
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Mike Baggetta - Guitar / Electronics
Matt Nelson - Bass
Nolan Nevels - Drums
Drawing from the works of the Free-Jazz pioneer, saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, Mike Baggetta has assembled a group of fearless improvisors with whom to reinterpret Coleman’s music with a newfound experimentalism paying tribute to the spirit of its creator. Expect classic Ornette tunes like Lonely Woman and Ramblin’ next to lesser known masterpieces like What Reason Could I Give and War Orphans, among others.
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“Mike Baggetta makes stealthy, mysterious music... he's trying to do something personal with collective improvisation without ever getting in the way of beauty.”
- Ben Ratliff, The New York Times
“NY guitar poet Mike Baggetta… veers daringly and compellingly from patient, elegiac freedom to searing, oozing sludge rock without the slightest hesitation or apology. Cool!”
- Nels Cline, Guitarist
“There are plenty of guitarists with chops but few whose fingers can write and paint pictures this musically.”
- Mark F. Turner, All About Jazz
Mike Baggetta is a guitarist and composer from New York City, recently relocated to Knoxville, TN. It has been said that he is “a guitarist of slippery proficiency” (The New York Times), that his performances are “totally compelling” (Jazz Journal, UK) and that his melodic sense is truly beautiful” (Jazzreview.com).
Mike’s singular and very personal musical style seeks to blur the lines between composition and improvisation, while connecting a wide range of musical genres that influence him. He has earned accolades from the press that call this approach “…beguilingly atmospheric…” (Time Out New York) and that “Baggetta’s music [is] quietly transgressive… Even when he plays a lot of notes, his playing can sound almost static, as though ideas were being snagged out of thin air.” (The Hartford Courant)
Baggetta’s latest disc Spectre, his 4th release as a leader on the Fresh Sound New Talent label, features extensive use of live sampling as an integral part of the compositions, alongside Jerome Harris on acoustic bass guitar and Billy Mintz on drums. He has also previously released 4 recordings of his quartet music featuring Jason Rigby, Eivind Opsvik, Cameron Brown, George Schuller and RJ Miller, in addition to several albums by his co-led duo TIN/BAG with West Coast trumpeter Kris Tiner.
Mike Baggetta has performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, The Kennedy Center, Town Hall, The Alternative Guitar Summit, Gateshead Jazz Festival and many other leading concert venues worldwide. He has worked with David Torn, Donny McCaslin, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Jerome Harris, Dominique Eade, Nels Cline, David Wax Museum, Tim Berne, Craig Taborn, Ches Smith, Tyshawn Sorey, Jon Irabagon, Gerald Cleaver, Greg Tardy, Adam Kolker, Billy Mintz, Cameron Brown, Tom Harrell, Jamie Baum, Jeff Hirshfield, Conrad Herwig, George Schuller, Jason Rigby, Eivind Opsvik, Jeremy Udden, Tony Reedus, John Lindberg, Kevin Norton, Joseph C. Philips’ Numinous, Bill McHenry, Brad Shepik, Steve Cardenas and Ruth Brown among many others.
Baggetta is an Endorsing Artist for D’Addario Strings and has also received an ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award.
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