<\/p>\n
Curating shows and bringing people together is \u201cborderline addictive\u201d to Steven Head.<\/p>\n
Never before in his time as the manager of Pulp Arts, a recording studio, or in other roles had he curated a weeklong event. But Head, producer of the New Horizons festival, thought it was time the Gainesville jazz scene be celebrated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like it was just almost self-evident that there is such an incredible music community here, specifically a jazz one,\u201d he said. \u201cIt felt like I was connecting the dots on things that are already strong and existing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first annual New Horizons festival, dedicated to jazz and adventurous music, will take place Feb. 23 through March 1 at various locations in downtown Gainesville. It will feature over 15 artists \u2014 both local and out-of-town musicians \u2014 and build up to a concluding performance by the prolific drummer, composer and producer Makaya McCraven.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though Head said it was a sprint to put together the festival \u2014 the idea came together toward the end of fall \u2014 New Horizons was born out of relationships he and Pulp Arts have taken years to build.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Acknowledging that punk and hip-hop typically dominate the Gainesville music scene, Head said he hopes to shine a brighter light on local jazz musicians through New Horizons. But the artists in the lineup cannot be defined by any one genre or culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From an improvisational performance by Mike Khoury, a Palestinian American composer, to a film screening of \u201cSoundtrack to a Coup d\u2019Etat,\u201d an Oscar-nominated documentary, the New Horizons festival is ripe with diversity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the programming that I curate and Pulp Arts presents often dips into the avant garde,\u201d Head said. \u201cSo it’s just an opportunity to potentially present new forms of music to people who might not be exposed to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head said New Horizons presents an opportunity for the community to tap into venues where high-level jazz programming occurs regularly, like Baby J\u2019s Bar and The Bull, both located downtown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fusion and funk band Dionysus, which dubs its genre \u201castro jazz funk,\u201d will be on the bill Feb. 28 at one of those jazz hotspots. The band has worked with Pulp Arts in the past, and it sought the studio\u2019s help to record several music videos. Saxophonist Jose Pi\u00f1eiro admires the \u201ccoalition\u201d Pulp Arts has created in Gainesville.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though Dionysus has played big events like the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival and Suwannee Hulaween, 34-year-old Pi\u00f1eiro is excited to be playing an intimate, \u201cjazz-club-esque\u201d set at one of the band\u2019s favorite venues, Baby J\u2019s Bar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As an improvisational saxophonist, Pi\u00f1eiro embraces the experimental style of music that New Horizons celebrates. He compared music to gastronomy, saying a musician might choose to elevate their sound as a chef would their cuisine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Enjoy what you’re reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThis whole adventurous genre \u2026 is more so in the line of like, \u2018How do we make sonically invigorating music?\u2019\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another of the festival\u2019s artists, Mike Baggetta, doesn\u2019t think of his own music in terms of genre. Head said Baggetta is one of Gainesville\u2019s greatest guitarists and best kept secrets.<\/p>\n
Having traveled the world with his craft, both solo and with his punk-jazz super group mssv, 46-year-old Baggetta has resided in Gainesville for the past four years. It\u2019s unreal to him that such a small town can have as impactful a resource as Pulp Arts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His global success didn\u2019t come from playing it safe. Baggetta insists on taking risks and being dangerous while playing his instrument.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The guitarist will perform on Feb. 25 at Loosey\u2019s Downtown. He hopes Gainesville locals who attend his set and the rest of New Horizons will get out of their own comfort zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think letting people know that the festival involves musicians that are taking chances in their music, doing things that are maybe a little bit left of mainstream, is a great opportunity to get people to come out and hear and experience things that they might not be used to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Contact Isabel Kraby at ikraby@alligator.org. Follow her on X @isabelgkraby.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \n The Independent Florida Alligator has been independent of the university since 1971, your donation today could help #SaveStudentNewsrooms. Please consider giving today.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Isabel is the The Alligator’s Spring 2026 music reporter. She is a junior studying journalism at UF and is from Ormond Beach, FL. In her spare time, she loves going to concerts, crafting and practicing guitar.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.alligator.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Curating shows and bringing people together is \u201cborderline addictive\u201d to Steven Head. Never before in his time as the manager of Pulp Arts, a recording studio, or in other roles had he curated a weeklong event. But Head, producer of the New Horizons festival, thought it was time the Gainesville jazz scene be celebrated.\u00a0 \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2293377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2293376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/New-Horizons-jazz-festival-to-\u2018paint-new-narrative-for-Gainesville.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2293376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2293378,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293376\/revisions\/2293378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2293377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2293376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2293376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2293376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n