“NY Guitar poet Mike Baggetta’s new recording with his potent trio veers daringly
and compellingly from patient, elegiac freedom to searing, oozing sludge rock without
the slightest hesitation or apology. One cannot resist its myriad charms. Cool!”
-Nels Cline, Guitarist
“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, New
York Times
“…a kind of post-Frisellian sonic explorer … with his wild whammy-bar articulations,
ambient looping and rippling arpeggios … full of subversive surprises, hellacious
skronking, string-scraping and a general hornets’ nest of fuzz-toned dissonance.” -Bill
Milkowski, DownBeat Magazine / Slate Magazine
It has been said that Mike Baggetta is “a guitarist of slippery proficiency” (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.” (Hartford Courant)
His last 4 albums as a leader have been released on the Fresh Sound New Talent label,
including Spectre, chosen as best of 2016 by Guitar Moderne and New York City Jazz
Record, among others, and have featured working bands including Jerome Harris, Billy
Mintz, Jason Rigby, Eivind Opsvik, George Schuller and RJ Miller. Mike also co-leads
the new music duo TIN/BAG with trumpeter Kris Tiner. They have released 4 albums together
including Bridges, which was included in Time Out New York’s Top 10 Jazz Albums of
2011. Baggetta’s next album, Wall of Flowers, due out in January 2019 on Big Ego Records,
features a reimagining of his trio music alongside drummer Jim Keltner and bassist
Mike Watt.
Baggetta has had the pleasure to work all over the world with a wide range of visionary
musicians across many generations including David Torn, Mike Watt, Jim Keltner, Nels
Cline, Donny McCaslin, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Tim Berne, Craig Taborn,
Dominique Eade, Ches Smith, Tyshawn Sorey, Psychic Temple, Julian Lage, Jon Irabagon,
Greg Tardy, Jerome Harris, Cameron Brown, David Wax Museum, Tom Harrell, Joseph C.
Philips’ Numinous, Imani Uzuri, Conrad Herwig, Billy Mintz, Eivind Opsvik, Jeremy
Udden, and Ruth Brown among many others. Baggetta is an Endorsing Artist for D’Addario
Strings.