Is there anything Fareed Haque can't do with a guitar? The answer is seemingly “no,” based on his incredibly varied musical activities, which include fronting Jam icons Garaj Mahal, guitaring for George Brooks in his Jazz band Summit and maintaining a solo career that includes duo gigs with guitarist Goran Ivanovic and recording and touring with his band, the Flat Earth Ensemble.
And let’s not forget Haque’s Classical guitar cred. When he ran out of great guitar concertos to perform, he wrote his own (including the Lahara Double Concerto for Sitar/Guitar and Tabla, the Gamelan Concerto and Pyramids), and for the past 20 years he’s been a faculty member at Northern Illinois University, where he is now an associate professor in Jazz and Classical Studies.
Since his birth 46 years ago to a Pakistani father and Chilean mother, Haque has been a citizen of the world, traveling the globe with his parents and absorbing the music of every culture he visited. At 18, he studied Jazz guitar with Jack Peterson at North Texas State, but his interest in Classical guitar ultimately led him to Northwestern. Haque has been acclaimed in every facet of his career — twice named Downbeat Magazine’s Talent Deserving Wider Recognition, he scored Most Valuable Player at the 2002 High Sierra Music Festival and was this year’s Best World Guitarist in Guitar Player’s Reader’s Choice Awards.
Haque has just embarked on an extensive Garaj Mahal tour but is taking time out for a handful of Flat Earth Ensemble dates, including this week’s at the Blue Wisp. Don’t miss Haque in his Jazz element before he returns to the Jam world and quite possibly before he turns things up to 11 and gives Steve Vai and Joe Satriani a run for their money.
(Get event and venue details here.)
