Woodland Pattern™ |
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| Book Center |
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Alternating Currents Live Archive Alternating Currents Live: Making Sounds Musical |
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| Sunday, October 1, 2006, 7pm Woodland Pattern Book Center 720 East Locust Street, Milwaukee Alternating Currents Live presents SOLO PIANO 2006 featuring Jim Baker Jim Baker has been playing piano, keyboards, and synthesizer in and around the midwest for more than two decades. His initial piano studies
During the 1980's, Baker was an active participant in Chicago’s then-nascent free improvisation scene, performing with groups that included among others percussionist Steve Hunt, bassist Kent Kessler, shortwave radiotarist Don Meckley; and percussionist Michael Zerang. During the 1990s, Baker continued to perform and work in various groups with Fred Anderson, Guillermo Gregorio, Edward Wilkerson, Ken Vandermark, Kevin Drumm, Jim O'Rourke, Josh Abrams, Harrison Bankhead, Hal Russell, Fred Lonberg-Holm, and Jeb Bishop. His first recordings date from 1995 when the improvising trio Caffeine (with Ken Vandermark and Steve Hunt) released their debut CD on the now Milwaukee-based label Okkadisk. A trio led by Baker, featuring Kent Kessler and Hamid Drake, with special guest tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson, performed at the 1996 Chicago Jazz Festival. Jim Baker was also part of a group assembled & conducted by writer / producer Art Lange (which also included O'Rourke, Lonberg-Holm, reedist Guillermo Gregorio, and percussionist Carrie Biolo-Thompson) that released the first complete recording of Cornelius Cardew's "Treatise" on the Zurich-based label Hat Art. For many years Jim Baker has performed regularly as house pianist at the weekly Sunday evening jam sessions at Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge and his powers as a soloist have been showcased on the performances and recordings of Ken Vandermark’s Territory Band (most recently in Milwaukee this past August). Jim Baker’s latest recording is his first solo disc on Delmark Records titled More Questions Than Answers which documents his virtuosity on both piano and ARP synthesizer. Jim Baker’s first Woodland Pattern performance took place in 1997 in a trio with percussionist Michael Zerang and multi-reedist Steve Nelson-Raney. He has returned to Alternating Currents Live on several occasions over the past ten years to play electrifying synthesizer duets with Thomas Lehn and contributed stunning keyboard work with David Boykin and the Expanse.  This concert is brought to you by the Alternating Currents Live series,
broadcast on WMSE (91.7) FM, Milwaukee.
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