Jim Baker (SOLO PIANO)

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

TIME: 2:00-3:00PM

VENUE: LOGAN CENTER Performance PENTHOUSE. 915 East 60TH ST.

JIM Baker

Jim Baker has been playing piano and synthesizer in and around Chicago and the world for a few decades, mostly in improvisational contexts. His work has been documented on more than eighty commercially released recordings, including recent and/or forthcoming work with Extraordinary Popular Delusions (usually comprised of some combination of Baker, Mars Williams, Edward Wilkerson Jr., Brian Sandstrom, and/or Steve Hunt); Rempis/Abrams/Ra+Baker; Urs Leimgruber and Jason Roebke; Charles Rumback; Brandon Lopez and Bill Harris; WiHuBa (with Edward Wilkerson Jr. and Steve Hunt); Mars Williams; Keefe Jackson/Baker/Julian Kirshner; Luke Stewart (with Wilkerson, Vandermark, and Ra); Bernard Santacruz and Samuel Silvant; Christoph Erb (with Frank Rosaly, Michael Zerang, or Steve Hunt); Junius Paul; Benjamin Vergara/Keefe Jackson/Phil Sudderberg; Dan Phillips; Forget to Find (with Jean-Luc Guionnet, Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, and Jason Roebke); and Madness of Crowds (with Brian Sandstrom, Matt Lux, Nate Lepine, and Joe Adamik).

For a number of years in the 90s, Baker was the house pianist for the weekly Sunday evening jam sessions at the Velvet Lounge. For most of the last fifteen years, he has been playing most Mondays at Beat Kitchen with free-improvisation group Extraordinary Popular Delusions.

For his Festival performance, Baker will just be playing piano. In recent years, in his infrequent solo performances, he has played a mixture of free improvision, interpretations of standards and other song-like material, and improvision-infused interpretations of original compositions. He may not know exactly what he’ll be playing (other than “piano”) until the afternoon of—or even moments before—his actual performance.