Henry Kaiser has been offering a series of weekly, solo, “live” performances” through Cuneiform Records. Mike Baggetta has posted a video of his band MSSV also performing “live.” Here, Henry talks about his duo video with Baggetta, why these performances are not streamed, and both reveal how they record them.
Danny Barnes is an American banjo player, singer, and composer. He was a founding member of the Bad Livers. As a solo artist, he has collaborated with Bill Frisell, Dave Matthews, and others. He has been awarded the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass.
Barnes also wrote what is, in my opinion, the best, most clear-headed guide to having a career as a musician available. It is posted on his website, but I took the liberty of adding capitals at the beginning of sentences and doing a little light editing for easier reading. Though it predates the importance of YouTube, it is still required knowledge for any musician who wishes to pursue music as a living, especially those performing the kind of music featured in Guitar Moderne. And as a bonus, here he is with Bill Frisell.
Summer festival season will be here before you know it. Hopefully we will be virus-free by then and you can enjoy the outdoors in the company of like-minded music fans. Either way, you can count on Guitar Moderne to supply virtual festivals like this to enjoy in the air-conditioned, Portapotty and germ-free comfort of your home.
We start the proceedings with this amazing Terje Rypdal trio concert from a decade ago that I seem to have missed, with Miroslav Vitous triggering orchestral samples.
Despite an increasing number of great recordings coming over my transom, three guitarists, Anthony Pirog, David Torn, and Mike Baggetta, dominated this year’s picks with two records each. In addition to being brilliant players who have produced stellar examples of their work on these albums, all the guitarists featured here are out in the trenches preforming live on a regular basis. In no particular order.
In February of 2019, I was flown up to Montreal to cover composer/guitarist Tim Brady’s evening of 150 guitars for Guitar Player. You can read my coverage and interview about that here and see a sample below. Inspired by my conversation with Dither’s James Moore, after we finished Tim’s GP interview, I restarted the recorder for a wide ranging dialogue about the state of the electric guitar in today’s classical world. We covered a lot of ground so I am breaking it up into two posts. If you enjoy Part I, please subscribe to be notified when Part II is posted.