Team Awesome: collective improvisations on the music of The Human League, Monk, Madonna, Wayne Shorter, Duran Duran, Michael Jackson and more. 

The traditional format of individual solos over a set of chord changes is supplanted by group improvisations on a theme. Each musician improvises and develops phrases in concert with the group. Solo heroics are subsumed by the collectivist whole.

The result is an atmospheric, collaborative pulse which evolves in response to the input of the players, the room and the audience. A wide range of influences can be detected living side by side – modern electronic music, minimalism, punk rock, Amricana, hip-hop and whatever else can be conjured in the moment.

TJ Stacy: a guitarist and creative who lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and performs jazz and improvised music. 

His music brain was jump-started in the early 1990s during late night jam sessions with local and itinerant musicians. Current and future members of Phish, Soulive, The Aquarium Rescue Unit, Leftover Salmon and others all made appearances in a fairly gross band-house basement in Burlington, Vermont. Fun was had, inspiration was found.

This was followed by travels across West Africa with a guitar in a backpack playing music wherever and whenever possible. The highlight was a two-week residency at Ghanian guitarist and musicologist Koo Nimo’s music education center in Kumasi. 

Returning to the U.S., TJ moved to New York City and enrolled in The New School Jazz program. There he was lucky enough to study guitar with David Fiuczynski (Meshell Ndegeocello, Screaming Headless Torsos); and M-base Collective guitar legend David Gilmore (Wayne Shorter, Steve Coleman); as well as participate in workshops or ensemble classes with Jim Hall, Kenny Werner, Cecil Bridgewater, Adam Holzman, Doug Weiss, Reggie Workman, and probably others he can’t remember.

He then accidentally spent 20 years traveling the world working as a Photographer, Designer, and Creative Director in the field of Advertising before returning to music.

In 2019 circumstances led TJ to Tallahassee, Florida, where he performed regularly with Dr. Longineau Parsons (Nat Adderly, Cab Calloway, Sun Ra, Branford Marsalis).

TJ relocated to Asheville in 2022 and he probably needs a gig.