Jim Knapp’s unique ensemble of jazz-inflected guitar & bass, plus symphonic harp & strings, celebrates its ninth year with a return to the Chapel.

SCRAPE is a 9-20 player ensemble playing original compositions. It features noted local musicians, including improvisers Chris Symer on upright bass & Brian Monroney on electric guitar, and Heather Bentley as violinist/leader. Founder Jim Knapp is the composer of all the tunes on this concert. Brianna Atwell is our principal violist, librarian, and music editor for publication and performance.

Music Educators — you are especially welcome to our performance! We are inaugurating published versions of SCRAPE tunes, suitable for intermediate- and advanced-level school ensembles. Thanks to Seattle-based Marina Music, who are our new publishers!! Please get in touch with us or Marina, before or after the show for more information.

The Alchemy of Improvisation is a cross-genre, improvised musical project bringing together the varied talents of bassist Abbey Blackwell, drummer Will Lone, and pianist Daniel Salka. The trio blends genres and styles into a tapestry of improvised music, aimed at representing the mystical qualities of life and sound – an alchemical process of music-making in which consciousness transmutes sound and sound transmutes consciousness.

Born and raised in Seattle, pianist/keyboardist Daniel Salka has had a lifetime interest in music-making. His love for jazz developed participating in Roosevelt High School’s jazz program. This led him to the University of Washington to study with jazz masters Ted Poor, Cuong Vu and Marc Seales, as well as perform with iconic guitarists Bill Frisell and Ben Monder. He graduated in 2018 with degrees is Jazz Piano Performance and Environmental Studies.

Abbey Blackwell is a double and electric bassist in the Seattle area. Since graduating from the University of Washington in 2013 with a Bachelor’s of Music in String Performance, she has expanded her skill set to more fully include jazz, improvised, and rock ‘n’ roll music.

Will Lone is a drummer and improvising artist who has been immersed extensively in music since 1998, cultivating a dimensional and melodic style of drum set playing. He performs regularly in and around Seattle with numerous groups of different styles, and has worked with acclaimed musicians including David Haney, Bill Anschell, Rob Scheps, Nathan Breedlove, Jim O’Connor, Tom Varner, and many others. He is also a member of Gamelan Pacifica, one of the finest ensembles devoted to the performance of music for gamelan in the U.S.

YESOD is a meeting of Middle Eastern and Middle Western musical influences where pure musical impulses flux between sound explorations and accessible improvisational hooks. Dynamic and bold percussion mix with intricate intertwining stringed instruments creating a foundation for voice, violin, clarinet, and other melodic instrumental experimentation. It will be a fantastic journey to the center of your heart mind and soul. Doors open at 7:30.

William Wolford (guitars, dan bau, trumpet, banjo, cümbüş, etc.) is a veteran recording artist, composer, sound designer and performer. His body of work crosses many genres from country to techno rock or from meditation music to movie soundtracks. Recently he is performing with West Seattle Soul, Yesod and his one man band, The One Man Bandit, while composing cutting edge meditation music.

Tige DeCoster (bass, percussion) has played bass professionally and taught music for the past twenty-five years. Currently, he is a member of the West Seattle Soul big band, and a member of Cuban son band Los Supersones.Tige is a published poet, recipient of the 2016 Joan Grayston Poetry Prize, and a 2009 Fulbright scholar.

Amy Denio composes for modern dance, film, theater and TV. She has a four-octave vocal range and plays guitar, bass, alto sax, clarinet and accordion. She has written more than 400 works and has produced over 50 recordings solo and in collaboration with artists worldwide. She operates her own recording studio, record label and publishing company, Spoot Music.

Ahmad Yousefbeigi is an inspired and sought-after percusionist/vocalist from Kurdistan. Ahmad’s versatility, love of cultural exchange and collaboration has co-founded Yesod in 2010 an acoustic, avant-garde, improvisational collaboration. In 2017 he became a member of the band The Crown and released their first vinyl record in 2018.

Earshot’s annual juried series, Jazz: The Second Century, returns with three evenings of innovative music. Artists are selected by a peer panel through a blind jury process to perform original work in a concert setting that is questioning and expanding the conventions of the jazz form. This year’s choices reflect our city’s current dialogue surrounding the art form, in all its nuances and subtleties.

Jeremey’s Pyramid Scheme

Saxophonist and composer Jeremy Shaskus agrees with Wynton Marsalis’ claim that jazz is a “melting pot.” Returning for the second year in a row, Jeremy’s Pyramid Scheme has recruited three more members to grow its enterprise to a septet. Shaskus’ expanded vision is “inspired by old Yiddish melodies, contemporary styles, and a great desire to compose for larger ensembles.” This is a group of well-established musicians who can seriously play and take play seriously. Come see what the Pyramid Scheme cooks up. Our guess? High energy, improvised cuts, a little sweet, mostly salty.

Jeremey Shaskus, alto sax
Stuart MacDonald, tenor sax
Nathan Breedlove, trumpet
Marc Smason, trombone
Jerome Smith, tuba
Ari Joshua, guitar
Will Lone, drums

Xavier Lecouturier Quartet

21-year old drummer and composer Xavier Lecouturier has quickly been making a name for himself on the scene since graduating from Cornish College of the Arts. Jazz, to Lecouturier, is a “beautiful and continuing story of freedom, diversity, and expression.” His music draws from his experience as a Mexican-French-American and is a manifestation of a myriad of influences from his mother’s love of the Mexican rock band MANA, to his father’s love of Sting, the Foo Fighters, and Donny Hathaway, to his brother’s playing of Chopin, to his friend’s love of rap and hip-hop.

Xavier Lecouturier, drums
Ben Feldman, bass
Lucas Winter, guitar
Gus Carns, piano

Kasson Crooker (aka Seattle electronic act Symbion Project) will be performing songs from the ambient album Gishiki and the new dark electronic album Backscatter that was released this past spring; ft Japanese koto, modular synthesis, field recordings, ultrasonic audio and visual projections ~ all in quadraphonic surround sound.

DAHLIIA returns to the stage for another quadraphonic performance of their improvised synthesis of historical and future musical elements. CINDY REICHEL and TOM BUTCHER (aka ORQID, CODEBASE) launched DAHLIIA in 2018 after years of working together as founders of PATCHWERKS, Seattle’s nexus for synthesizer enthusiasts, electronic instrument builders, and electronic music community. DAHLIIA convenes several eras of recorded sound, from musique concrète and drone tones to current fusion of modular synthesizer with spatialized sound processing. Both Cindy and Tom are skilled engineers, yet the essence of DAHLIIA is driven from a place of emotion, of spanning time, and of looking to the future.

7:30 Doors
8-9 PM Dahliia
9-10 PM Symbian Project

Originally scheduled as part of the Seattle Improvised Music Festival in February, but cancelled due to snow.

Holland Andrews (Portland, OR) is an extended-technique vocalist, composer, and performer who combines complex vocal layerings to create all-encompassing cathartic soundscapes. Their vocal style traverses a vast terrain of textures ranging from opera and throat singing, to noise and ambient music. Their compositional style weaves together a sprawling emotional tapestry to command space for both intimacy and chaos. By highlighting themes of transformation, mortality, and destruction, Andrews uses emotional experiences found in memory and nature as inspiration. Andrews develops and performs music for dance, theater, and film artists whose work has toured nationally and internationally.

For this performance Andrews will perform music from their new album What Makes Vulnerability Good, to be released mid-summer on Accidental Records (UK). They will also be exploring sonic themes of their next project, a piece regarding the narrative of their mother’s death through her eyes. The performance will have improvised elements as well as partially pre-composed material, using expansive vocal and clarinet loops to also enter into a solemn, meditative space with intensity and openness to nurture the story of their mother’s suicide.

Ambrosia Bardos (electronics/voice) & Ebony Miranda (cello) compose a call to water, using contained sounds and improvised cello in a remote collaboration from New York to Seattle.

Photo: Emily Krause

Earshot’s annual juried series, Jazz: The Second Century, returns with three evenings of innovative music. Artists are selected by a peer panel through a blind jury process to perform original work in a concert setting that is questioning and expanding the conventions of the jazz form. This year’s choices reflect our city’s current dialogue surrounding the art form, in all its nuances and subtleties.

FrancescoJAZZ

Pianist Francesco Crosara’s eclectic brand of jazz was born from early classical studies in harmony and composition at the Conservatory of Rome, steeped in the tradition of Italian and European romantic musical heritage, and honed by exposure to mainstream jazz and world music. His style is heavily influenced by improvisation and bouncy lyrical expressions drawn from jazz and Latin vocabularies. Crosara’s compositions are considerate of their audience, providing a source of joy, comfort, escape, and healing. Crosara believes jazz is a collective experience and a “living language” that distills a multitude of identities, backgrounds, and personalities.

Francesco Crosara – piano
Osama Afifi – acoustic and electric bass
Steven Bentley – drums and percussion

Kissyface

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Kevin Nortness has been contributing to the Seattle performance arts community since 1993. He is most well-known for his ten-year stint as a resident composer and performer with the Degenerate Art Ensemble. He has also contributed to Teatro Zinzanni, Moisture Festival, 14/48 Festival, and was the musical director for the Vashon Youth Theater. Nortness’ Kissyface trio draws on the talents of young improvisers Troy Schiefelbein and Mike Gebhart (The Sky is a Suitcase). Kissyface has been featured on Sonarchy Radio, which is recorded at Jack Straw Cultural Center and airs on KEXP.

Kevin Nortness – tenor sax
Troy Schiefelbein – bass
Mike Gebhart – drums

Having played together for a decade as part of the Rich Pellegrin Quintet, saxophonist Neil Welch and pianist Rich Pellegrin perform together for the first time as a duo. Each will play a set of solo improvised music before joining forces for a duo set.

Rich Pellegrin’s playing is noted for its intensity, conviction, directness of expression, and percussive yet sonorous tone quality. “Clearly an artist to watch” (Earshot Jazz), Pellegrin is currently working on his first solo album of free improvisations. His “strikingly original music” (Earshot Jazz) can in part be traced back to the influence of composers such as Bartok, Messiaen, Scriabin, and Reich, and solo pianists such as Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and Craig Taborn. As All About Jazz has observed, “Pellegrin seems to have multiple influences, displaying at times the density and drive of pianist McCoy Tyner, elsewhere sounding free and unpredictable, like no one but himself.”

Saxophonist Neil Welch‘s solo, acoustic works are impermanent auditory constellations—particulate structures, strata, monoliths, and dust—resonance imaginations on tenor, C melody and bass saxophones. Performing “raw, fearless improvisations” (Seattle Times) Welch is dedicated to expanding the saxophone’s role in modern improvisation. For the July 17th Chapel performance, Welch will cast light on abstract sound/silences through various means: multiphonics, screaming into the horn, phases of conical tone undulations, graphic notations, key clacking, tempered pitches, semitones, and wind.

Gradus for Fux, Tesla, and Milo the Wrestler (Three Rungs) is a piano composition in perpetual progress. The score, in a nutshell is: “learn to play the piano one note at a time.” Since 2002, that is more or less what Neal Kosaly-Meyer has been doing, first working through all the A’s and all combinations of all the A’s, devoting a lengthy improvisation session to each A and to each combination. Since completing combinations of the A’s, E’s, C#’s, G’s and B’s have been added to the mix. In performance, a two hour time-frame is divided into sections of 60′, 40′ and 20′, and each section is assigned either a single pitch, a pair of pitches, or a set of three or more pitches, currently selected from the total set of all the A’s, E’s, C#’s, G’s and B’s (37 pitches total). Silence is also an extremely important element in Gradus and is considered in the Cagean sense: all the unintended environmental sounds which occur in the course of the performance. Assuming nice weather, the windows will be open to let in more of that kind of silence.

(photo: James Holt)

Earshot’s annual juried series, Jazz: The Second Century, returns with three evenings of innovative music. Artists are selected by a peer panel through a blind jury process to perform original work in a concert setting that is questioning and expanding the conventions of the jazz form. This year’s choices reflect our city’s current dialogue surrounding the art form, in all its nuances and subtleties.

Friends & Heroes

Haley Freedlund is a musician rooted in improvisation and a composer rooted in songwriting. In a musical landscape that she describes as “often dominated by a mix of athleticism, machismo, and perfectionism,” her take on jazz offers something more tender. Her narrative output takes the shape of longer melodic ideas, repetition, and thematic composing. Freedlund’s music is like the first stretch of morning, limbs reaching, eyes open to the light of a new day. Friends & Heroes is comprised of mainstays of Seattle’s creative improvised music scene: Haley Freedlund, trombone; James Falzone, clarinet; Tom Varner, French horn; Abbey Blackwell, acoustic bass; Evan Woodle, drums.

DX-Tet

Recent Cornish College of the Arts graduate Dylan Hayes has been gaining momentum as a sought-after pianist, composer, and bandleader. Notably, Hayes recently took the reins of the Jim Knapp Orchestra. “My compositions are brought to life through arrangements and I enjoy arranging for all of the various instruments, which is why I am drawn to writing for larger ensemble’s such as big band or octet,” says Hayes. His octet, DX-tet, is co-led by Xavier Lecouturier. Both originally from the Bay-area, the two are long-time friends and collaborators. Their music draws from a wide range of genres including hip-hop, pop, funk, and jazz.

Jared Hall, trumpet
Nicole McCabe, alto sax
Rex Gregory, tenor sax
Stuart MacDonald, baritone sax
Martin Budde, guitar
Dylan Hayes, piano
Michael Glynn, bass
Xavier Lecouturier, drums