June 20, 2008

A belated update about some news here at Mikebaggetta.com!  My quartet, with the great George Schuller filling in on drums, had a great gig at the Brooklyn Lyceum last week as part of Joe Philips' series over there.  Thanks to everybody who made it out.  We received the following nice little listing in the NY Times from Nate Chinen:  "The up-and-coming guitarist Mike Baggetta seeks an adventurous but accessible dynamic with his quartet, which features Jason Rigby on tenor saxophone, Eivind Opsvik on bass and George Schuller on drums."  I'll be mixing and mastering the album of this band soon for an autumn release on the Fresh Sound New Talent label - stay tuned.

I'm gearing up for a few weeks of teaching jazz guitar this summer at Camp Encore-Coda in Maine as well as at the National Guitar Workshop's Jazz Summit week in New Milford, CT.  John Scofield, Steve Swallow and Bill Stewart will also be there!  The latter part of this year is coming together with some nice gigs, including a special one with TIN/BAG in NYC - see the schedule page for more details...

April 15, 2008

The quartet recording went great at Michael Brorby's Acoustic Recording in Brooklyn yesterday.  We got some really great music down with Jason Rigby, Eivind Opsvik and RJ Miller.  Stay tuned for details about the future release of this record.  The next gig on the calendar for this group is at Joe Phillips' Wednesday series at the Brooklyn Lyceum on June 11.  RJ won't be playing drums for this date, but George Schuller has agreed to join the group for this gig!  George has been one of my favorite drummers to listen to over the years so I'm really excited to get to play my music with him on June 11.  More details about this gig are on the schedule page...

April 8, 2008

The Quartet gig at Bar 4 went great last night!  I'm really excited to be recording my music with Jason Rigby, Eivind Opsvik and RJ Miller next week at Michael Brorby's Acoustic Recording in Brooklyn.  Of course all news about the recording and its release will be posted here as soon as it becomes available.  I also want to say here how much fun I had being able to play trio with Steve LaSpina and Jeff Hirshfield last month.  These guys are two of the best and the music was a blast for everybody...hopefully there will be more of those too!

Last news for now is that I am featured in this month's All About Jazz New York paper.  I have a little write-up in the Listen Up! section.  You can get the paper for free at venues throughout NYC or you can download it for free from their website.  I'm on page 12.  Thanks everybody!

February 25, 2008:

Just wanted to put an update on the news page today.  Yesterday I recorded a little bit with my friend, and great saxophonist, Jeremy Udden for his new album coming out on the Fresh Sound New Talent label in the near future.  His band for this record includes Eivind Opsvik, RJ Miller, Pete Rende and Brandon Seabrook.  Those guys are great.  He asked me to come in just to add little bit of extra guitar and I was really happy to be included in the project a little bit.  Keep an eye out for the CD...

The Mike Baggetta Quartet has a bunch of gigs coming up!  Soonest is Thursday, February 28, 10pm at Freddy's Backroom in Brooklyn, NY with Eivind Opsvik, RJ Miller and Jason Rigby.  Future dates in Brooklyn are April 7th at Bar 4 and June 11th at the Brooklyn Lyceum.  This band will be recording my music the second week of April for a future release - stay tuned and check the SCHEDULE page for more details on where you can come out and show your support for this music and group!

Lastly, I have two fun trio gigs on the calendar so far in March.  The first is Saturday, March 1st, at the Williamsburgh Cafe in Brooklyn, NY, 8pm.  I'll be joined by the exceptional vibraphonist Tom Beckham and extraordinary bassist Gavin Fallow.  The second one is Saturday, March 22nd, 7:30pm at Delta's in New Brunswick, NJ.  I'm very excited to be joined by Steve LaSpina on bass and Jeff Hirshfield on drums for this gig!  ...should be a lot of fun!

January 23, 2008:

Welcome to the new website everybody. As you may notice I have ended my blogging experiment and will be giving all news updates on this page of the website from now on.  And, even though the link at the top is no longer there, you can still locate me on MYSPACE at www.myspace.com/mikebaggetta.

Just finished a recording with Swedish tenor saxophonist Klas Toresson a few days ago.  It was nice band that Klas put together with myself, Jeremy Udden on alto and soprano saxophones, Bridget Kearney on bass and Mike Johnson on drums.  We recorded a bunch of tunes by Klas, a couple of Jeremy's and Bridget's as well as my tune, Hospital Song.  Stay tuned to this news page for details on its release in the near future.

For those of you going to my DISCOGRAPHY page to order copies of the CD Canto., my solo prepared guitar disc, please note that this album is no longer available in hard copies.  It was originally a limited run by a now defunct label.  Instead of pressing another set of discs I have decided to make this available as a digital download only.  This is happening as we speak and I will put it on the news page when this becomes available.  Please keep checking back if you are interested in this!