Acevedo | Baker | Bitney | Jackson Quartet

IMprovised SOund – Milwaukee presents the Quartet of Ausberto Acevedo (Bass), Jim Baker (Piano and ARP), Dan Bitney (Drums and Percussion) & Keefe Jackson (Woodwinds) in the Sugar Maple back room! 8pm / doors 7:30

Ausberto Acevedo -Bass
Jim Baker -Piano and ARP
Dan Bitney -Drums and Percussion
Keefe Jackson -Woodwinds

The trio of Ausberto Acevedo, Jim Baker, and Dan Bitney had its first meeting while joining Sweden’s Sebastian Strinning during a residency Strinning was undertaking in the States in 2022. The trio reunites this time with Chicago veteran Keefe Jackson on reeds. This new quartet promises to be an exciting culmination of four singular and unique voices.

Artist Bios

Ausberto Acevedo is a bassist, composer, improviser, and teacher performing regularly both live and in the studio. In addition to his performing endeavors, Ausberto is the director of orchestras for Evanston Township High School. As a performer, Ausberto has performed or recorded with a variety of improvisers and new music performers including, Philip Greenleaf, Gino Robair, Kyle Bruckmann, Jason Stein, Guillermo Gregorio, Frank Gratkowski, Sebastian Strinning, Jaimie Branch, Dan Bitney, Jim Baker, Paul Hartsaw, Adam Shead, Jerome Bryerton, Stephen Parris, Zachary Watkins, and John Seman. Ausberto is the regular performing and recording bassist for Chicago based singer/songwriter, Al Scorch. As a member of the Seattle based music collective, “The Monktail Creative Music Concern,” Ausberto was awarded an Earshot Jazz Emerging Artist’s award.

Jim Baker has been playing piano and synthesizer in and around Chicago and the world for a few decades; mostly in improvisational contexts–some portion of which have been documented on dozens recordings, most of which involve names familiar to followers of the Chicago “improv scene”, including Fred Anderson; Ken Vandermark; Michael Zerang; Mars Williams; Dave Rempis; Avreeayl Ra; David Boykin; Vincent Davis; Keefe Jackson; Charles Rumback; and many others. During the mid-to-late 1990s, Baker was the house pianist for the weekly Sunday evening jam sessions at Fred Anderson’s Velvet Lounge. In the post-y2k era: for most of the last fifteen years, he has been playing almost every Monday, early evening (pandemic permitting) at Beat Kitchen (2100 W. Belmont, in Chicago) with Extraordinary Popular Delusions (a free-improvisation group usually comprising some combination of Mars Williams, Edward Wilkerson Jr, Brian Sandstrom, Steve Hunt, and/or Baker.

Dan Bitney is an experimental musician and composer based in Chicago. He works within avant-garde electronic rock and improvisational groups most notably Tortoise, Isotope 217, Spectralina.

Keefe Jackson, saxophonist/clarinetist/improvisor/composer, arrived in Chicago in 2001 from his native Fayettevile, Arkansas. He performs regularly in the U.S. and in Europe with many musicians including Pandelis Karayorgis, Tomeka Reid, Tim Daisy, Dave Rempis, Jeb Bishop, Jason Roebke, Jason Adasiewicz, Mike Reed, Jason Stein, Josh Berman, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Frank Rosaly, Oscar Jan Hoogland and Marc Unternaehrer. He has also appeared with Michael Moore, Ab Baars, Michiel Braam, Satoko Fujii, and Anthony Coleman. Bill Meyer (Chicago Reader): “…the impeccable logic of his lines and the richness of his tone leave you wanting more… Jackson’s high-register squiggles and coarsely voiced, rippling runs push the limits of the tenor’s tonal envelope.” Frank van Herk, de Volkskrant (Amsterdam): “[Jackson] has an old-fashioned, warm-woolly sound, and a feeling for melodic lines that take their time in unfolding.” He has been mentioned in the DownBeat Critics Poll in the Rising Star Tenor Saxophone category. Recordings are available on Delmark and Clean Feed Records.