Paolo Angeli | SFJAZZ 2024-25 Season
Paolo Angeli
Sardinian Guitar Innovator

Paolo Angeli

MAR 13-16 | INNOVATIONS

Mar 13 - Mar 14, 2025
Joe Henderson Lab
ThuMar 13
7:00 PM

$30

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ThuMar 13
8:30 PM

$30

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FriMar 14
7:00 PM

$30

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FriMar 14
8:30 PM

$30

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Guitarist Paulo Angeli is a musical conjurer, an artist whose imaginative leaps defy gravity. A composer, ethnomusicologist and instrument builder who draws on his deep knowledge of traditional Sardinian music, he inhabits a timeless zone as a soil-rooted master and brash experimentalist. While suffused with Mediterranean cadences, Angeli’s original pieces encompass flamenco, jazz, Baroque, post-rock and new music. He plays a prepared Sardinian guitar of his own invention, a fantastical 18-string hybrid combining elements of guitar, cello and drums. A feast for the eyes as well as the ears, Angeli in full flight is an astounding sight, as he bows, strikes, hammers, plucks and strums an instrument with strings going in all directions and foot-pedal-controlled motorized propellers. 

With sympathetic strings creating shimmering drones, he adjusts tunings on the fly to create exquisitely lapidary, orchestral music using electronic effects in real time (he eschews loopers, creating every sound in the moment). It’s not surprising that this singular musician has improvised and collaborated with masters such as Pat Metheny, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Zeena Parkins, and Phillip Greenlief. Angeli’s music may be unclassifiable, but it takes no expertise to recognize its strange and extravagant beauty. 

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The innovative Sardinian guitarist and composer performs with his 18-string instrument combining elements of guitar, cello and drums. 

Impressive not only for the unique sounds that he was manifesting, but also for the raw creative energy that it invoked

Pat Metheny

Impressive not only for the unique sounds that he was manifesting, but also for the raw creative energy that it invoked

Pat Metheny

Personnel

Paolo Angeli  18-string Sardinian guitar

Angeli's guitar playing is deftly virtuosic

BBC

Personnel

Paolo Angeli  18-string Sardinian guitar

Angeli's guitar playing is deftly virtuosic

BBC

Watch & Listen

Paolo Angeli

Baklawa

Paolo Angeli

Mare Lungo

Paolo Angeli

Baklawa

Paolo Angeli

Mare Lungo

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