NYC guitarist Mike Baggetta debuts a new project in Knoxville, playing reinterpretations of the hits made famous by Tennessee’s own Patsy Cline. Audience members can look forward to Country classics like Crazy and Walkin’ After Midnight, heard through the arrangements of Baggetta’s modern Jazz and Improvised music style, with hints of the styles of Ornette Coleman and Paul Motian throughout… Not to be missed!
Mike Baggetta is a guitarist and composer living in New York City. 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). The Mike Baggetta Quartet has recently released Thieves and Secrets, their third album of Baggetta’s original works on the Fresh Sound New Talent label. In addition to leading the Quartet, Baggetta co-leads Tin/Bag, a new music duo with California trumpeter Kris Tiner, a trio featuring Jerome Harris on acoustic bass guitar and Billy Mintz on Drums, as well as being involved in many varied projects as a sideman. 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. 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 has performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, The Kennedy Center, Town Hall and many other leading concert venues worldwide. He has worked with Tom Harrell, Adam Kolker, Billy Mintz, Cameron Brown, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Dominique Eade, Jamie Baum, Jeff Hirshfield, Conrad Herwig, Ralph Bowen, Jeremy Udden, Jerome Harris, Tony Reedus, Donny McCaslin, John Lindberg, Gerald Cleaver, Jon Irabagon, Joseph C. Philips’ Numinous, Kevin Norton, Bill McHenry, Brad Shepik, Steve Cardenas, Ruth Brown and Tyshawn Sorey among many others. Baggetta has also received an ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award and is an Endorsing Artist for D’Addario Strings.