Did you catch that article in the New York Times back in August about Seattle’s growing homegrown jazz scene (Seattle’s Alt-Rock Hub, Purring With Jazz)? Well, if you want to check out some of the finest sounds around, you don’t need to get in your car or catch a bus. Just step out door and poke your head in at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center (4639 Sunnyside Ave N), which is hosting the third annual Is That Jazz? music festival January 21, 22, 28, and 29 at 8:00 PM:
The Seattle Composers’ Salon is pleased to announce the third-annual “IS THAT JAZZ?” music festival taking place on January 21, 22, 28, 29, 2011 in Seattle, Washington. Four inspired evenings with eight compelling performances at an exquisite space for listening to music, the Chapel Performance Space in the Wallingford neighborhood.
IS THAT JAZZ? is a festival dedicated to daring and exploratory artists who are redrawing the boundaries of jazz, and infusing the genre with new forms, new sounds, and renewed sense of immediacy. Some want to limit jazz to a specific and narrow definition; IS THAT JAZZ? embraces jazz a living, breathing art-form, one that must change and grow.
Headlining the festival is the Nels Cline Singers with Yuka C. Honda. This is a brilliantly creative band, featuring one of the most celebrated guitarists of the new generation of jazz artists.
- FRIDAY JANUARY 21
- EMPTY CAGE QUARTET: The Empty Cage Quartet has been consistently praised by critics as one of the most interesting and original new jazz groups to emerge from the American West Coast. For over eight years the group has explored new ways to integrate a diverse mix of musical influences, utilizing a unique system that blurs the lines between composition and improvisation.
- SUN RA TRIBUTE BAND: This all-star dectet returns to open the festival and pay tribute to the inspirational iconoclast Sun Ra by playing many of his compositions from the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Expect sparkly robes, processions, group vocals, flying objects and planetary realignment. The cast of characters includes Seattle new-music godfathers Stuart Dempster and William O. Smith.
- SATURDAY JANUARY 22
- OPERATION ID: Seattle’s only minimalistic, avant-garde, electro-pop, noise-cluster, synth-rock, free-jazz, experimental, dance-prog band – Operation ID – is a five-piece band with a propensity to combine enormous pop energy with free improvisation. Originally interested in the spontaneity of free-jazz, Operation ID’s open mindedness has guided them to embrace a position of willingness when experimenting with new sounds and musical approaches.
- DANA REASON: Dana Reason is a unique artist and one of the few pianists able to seamlessly intertwine pure mastery of classical, jazz, American music and the avant-garde on the concert stage. Reason is a Canadian-born pianist/composer currently splitting her time between teaching at Oregon State University, composing, and touring with the Dana Reason Trio (Dana Reason, Glen Moore, and Peter Valsamis) for Wild Rose Artists (www.wildroseartsits.com).
- FRIDAY JANUARY 28
- AMY DENIO + LUCIO MENEGONE: The East Bay Express describes Seattle artist Amy Denio: as “a peripatetic purveyor of multitudinous musical delights – her one-woman shows are replete with linguistic gymnastics, instrumental improvisations, and more mood elevators than a year’s worth of your favorite pharmaceutical.” Amy will be joined for her set by New York guitarist and composer Lucio Menegone, a truly original and creative performer.
- DOUGLAS DETRICK’S ANYWHEN ENSEMBLE WITH GUEST WAYNE HORVITZ: Douglas Detrick’s AnyWhen Ensemble is a part of a small but exciting group of ensembles fusing the jazz and classical traditions together into a new and vibrant music that respects and builds upon its sources. The music is intimate and personal, blending the spontaneity of improvised music with the balance and form of chamber music. The group will be joined by Seattle new-music star Wayne Horvitz.
- SATURDAY JANUARY 29
- TRIPTET: The celestially avant trio Triptet was forged from the fertile ground for sound created in 1986 when John Cage and Sun Ra performed together in Coney Island. 23 years later, Triptet left the mother ship and made their earthly debut. Triptet is a meeting of minds and spontaneous electrical impulses between Michael Monhart (saxophones and percussion), Tom Baker (fretless guitar and effects), and Greg Campbell (percussion, french horn and cheap electronics).
- NELS CLINE SINGERS with YUKA C. HONDA: Nels Cline is one of the most versatile, imaginative and original guitarists active today. Combining breathtaking technique with an informed musical intelligence, the self-taught Cline displays a mastery of guitar expression that encompasses delicate lyricism, sonic abstractions, and skull-crunching flights of fancy, inspiring Jazz Times to call him “The World’s Most Dangerous Guitarist.”
The festival is all ages with a suggested donation of $15 per person (but contact [email protected] if you’re interested in volunteering one night to attend free another). If you attend and want to share a review our readers, please drop us a line.