Café ZED - Open Mic night with featured performance by Mike Agranoff

The monthly series will begin with an open mic at 7:30pm. Anyone wishing to perform music, comedy, poetry, dance or any other performing art is encouraged to participate by signing up at 7pm on the night of the show. Every effort will be made to give all a chance to perform. Open mic will be followed with a concert performance by Mike Agranoff.

What Mike Agranoff does as a folk musician is a rather difficult question to answer.... He plays a superb fingerstyle guitar in idioms ranging from ancient harp tunes to obscure Tin-Pan-Alley compositions. A performance might include a song of heart-stopping emotional impact, a Scott Joplin piano rag, an acapella Irish patter song sung to the melody of a mile-a-minute fiddle tune, a riveting recitation in the style of Robert Service, and some of the most horrible parodies in the English speaking world. Whatever else he does, Mike puts a lie to the notion that folk music is boring.

If you've been around the folk scene at all in the Northeast, you've probably seen him. He's that tall guy with the red beard and funny hat with the light in it. And when the music starts, he's in the middle, adding to the chorus and probably knowing all the lines. His repertoire is vast and varied. Mike is not only a collector of songs and a master at arranging them, but is also a writer of songs and recitations. He has a keen ear for the best of the best, and this only enhances his own writing. If you're sick of the endless stream of singer songwriters who write for the market, you will find Mike to be a refreshing alternative. He makes us laugh, cry and think, all the while entertaining us long into any evening of music.

Café ZED will take place at the NJAI studio, 495 Prospect Avenues – Essex Green on the Courtyard, just ‘follow the art’ down the walkway to the AMC Cinema entrance and turn right at the new mural into the courtyard. 7pm – 10pm. Admission $7; free for NJAI members
For more information on Café ZED or for featured musician submissions please contact Tom Picard at 848/219-1868.
Photo credit: Robert Corwin
http://mikeagranoff.com/

www.njai.org