In the 17th year of this piano composition in perpetual progress, the pitch palette has begun to become rich (at least compared to those 12 or 13 years when only A’s appeared): This year’s Chapel performance, might include A’s, E’s, C#’s, G’s or B’s. As always, Gradus is played with an ear to the quiet and sometimes not-so-quiet sounds of the environment (on most summer evening performances past we have played with the windows open, and hope this will be possible once again). Though the selection of pitches used is precise and severe, the actual playing is entirely improvised, responding attentively to the inward and outward requirements of the moment.

Cecil Taylor, who always seemed like he gave such minute attention to each sound he made, has always been a primary inspiration for this project. Following his recent passing, this year’s performance is gratefully dedicated to his memory.

Read the nice write-up at Second Inversion.

Jazz: The Second Century brings the progression of jazz into creative motion on the concert stage, presenting Seattle artists selected by a peer panel, performing original work in a concert setting. The series is a continuation of the very first programming initiative of the Earshot Jazz organization, and embodies one of our core values. It offers a current, subtle, perhaps refreshing, un-sentimental look at our city’s engagement with this diffuse, vibrant art form.

Solo guitarist Matthew Anderson, aka Cathedral of Trees, draws upon the work of Brazilian jazz master Egberto Gismonti and other post-1960s New World composers. Armed with a 10-string classical guitar, Anderson explores the intersections between jazz, classical, and world music with spontaneity and dynamism. A native to the Northwest, Anderson is a graduate from the Classical Guitar Performance Program at Cornish College of the Arts and an educator with an emphasis on Baroque and Latin American styles.

Composer and bandleader Ronan Delisle (guitar) is interested in disrupting the tired, tried-and-true jazz formula of opening head, improvisation, and return to theme. His compositions employ traditional jazz elements in new ways, as he re-examines the roles of instruments, actively re-working how themes and languages are presented. The music calls on the individual talents of the young, up-and-coming band members, including Abbey Blackwell (bass), 2017 2nd Century participant Thomas Campbell (drums), the 2015 Golden Ear Emerging Artist of the Year, Raymond Larsen (trumpet), and Daniel Salka (piano). The group has nurtured a rapport that allows the music to flow freely, painting between reference points with wide swathes of rhythmic and melodic colors.

Guitarist Dennis Rea continues the tradition of Tanabata* concerts that fall on his birthday of 7/7, alongside drummers Alan Cook and Don Berman, woodwind player Dick Valentine, and electronicist Jan Koekepan in various configurations. Expect original pieces, interpretations of Central Asian traditional music, and expansive improvisations, all within the warm sonic embrace of the Chapel.

* the annual Japanese/Chinese ‘star festival’ marking the once-yearly meeting of Orihime and Hikoboshi in the heavens

(photo by Danette Davis)

CARL is a baritone sax/bass duo from Houston (Danny Kamins and Andrew Durham) merging free jazz doom metal, and noise/drone. CARL finds itself in a space between the discomfort, anxiety, and bile of noise music and the abstraction and artistic intentions of improvisational music. This recording is hard to access and not easy to classify. Speaking for ourselves, it is our intention to obscure the feeling of human intent and even human presence. This is a direct reaction to the alienation and post-modern angst Houston produces, feelings that are specially heavy looking out at the fantastic architecture of the city’s many refineries. To steal a line from Roberto Bolano, the city is more like a cemetery than a city, not a cemetery in 2001 or 2016, but a cemetery in the year 2666, a forgotten cemetery under the eyelid of a corpse or an unborn child, bathed in the dispassionate fluids of an eye that tried so hard to forget one particular thing that it ended up forgetting everything else.

Scrambler is a large improvising ensemble conducted by Christian Pincock using the Sound Painting vocabulary of Walter Thompson.

Macaw is the Beefheartian guitar/drums duo of Jeb Polstein and Tom Scully.

Neil Welch plays solo improvisations for saxophone and electronics.

Jazz: The Second Century brings the progression of jazz into creative motion on the concert stage, presenting Seattle artists selected by a peer panel, performing original work in a concert setting. The series is a continuation of the very first programming initiative of the Earshot Jazz organization, and embodies one of our core values. It offers a current, subtle, perhaps refreshing, un-sentimental look at our city’s engagement with this diffuse, vibrant art form.

Seattle native Chris McCarthy (piano) has compiled a rock-solid trio for his project Sonder, featuring Greg Feingold (bass), and Thomas Campbell (drums). While the musicians are no strangers to the Seattle jazz scene, the Sonder project stretches their talents into new territory as they re-imagine rock and pop songs from an expanded Great American Songbook. Sonder, which debuted in Seattle last December, performs covers of songs from the 21st century that they assert “are malleable enough to be effective vehicles for improvisation,” from indie-rock band Deerhoof to punk band Birthing Hips. Their aim is to expand the jazz art form’s reach to a broader audience while breaking down the limiting barriers of the genre, both real and perceived.

Saxophonist Kate Olson came to Seattle in 2010 and has since made a name for herself in the improvised music scene. She is a regular collaborator with Syrinx Effect, Seattle Rock Orchestra, the Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble, and Electric Circus, among others. For the 2018 2nd Century Series, Olson presents her group, KO Electric. Joining her for this project is Tarik Abouzied, who is most well-known as a drummer, working with McTuff and his own project, Happy Orchestra. For KO Electric, he switches it up by appearing on electric bass, delivering funky grooves that are sure to stoke smiles. Fellow Royal Room Collective collaborator Ryan Burns joins on keyboards, while Ruby Dunphy of Thunderpussy brings her energetic and powerful drumming to the mix.

Watch video of sets by KO Electric and Sonder, thanks to elhotrod32.

Anna Friz is a sound and media artist who specializes in multichannel radio transmission systems for installation, performance, and broadcast. Since 1998, she has created and presented new audio art and radiophonic works internationally in which radio is often the source, subject, and medium of the work. She also composes atmospheric sound works and sonic installations for theater, dance, film, and solo performance that reflect upon public media culture, political landscapes and infrastructure, time perception, the intimacy of signal space, and speculative fictions. Friz is Assistant Professor in the Film and Digital Media Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Her performance tonight explores the expressive environment of low fidelity signal and physical landscapes, from interference-prone terrestrial radio beacons to sonic distillations of field recordings using radiophonic instruments and transmitters, accompanied by cottage-built electronics, voice, and monochrome photo montage from recent fieldwork in northeastern Iceland and northern Chile.

Afroditi Psarra is a multidisciplinary artist working in the intersection of electronic textiles and physical computing with sound art. Her research focuses on the merge of science fiction ideas with poetic representations and performative practices, traditional crafting methodologies with engineering and electronics, the art and science interaction with a critical discourse in the creation of artifacts.

Psarra’s Lilytronica is a project inspired by folk tradition, pop culture and DIY electronics, utilizing hand-made electronic embroidery in the context of experimental sound performance. The work is based on live improvisation through the use of three embroidered synthesizers with LilyPad Arduino micro controllers, sensors and actuators embedded into fabric.

Presented by Nonsequitur.

Composer/Filmmaker/Artist/Violist Renee Baker is one of Kin of the Moon‘s heroes from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago and we are privileged to have worked with her, to be inspired by her, and be mentored by her. She has been an early supporter of KOTM and it is our deep honor to commission and present her new work Tyaga: Divine Life Suite, a through-composed work for various flutes, viola, voice, cello, percussion and electronics that combines the structure of a notated work with areas of improvised music. Guest improvising artists Gretchen Yanover, cello and Greg Campbell, percussion and brass join KOTM to premiere this passionate new work. The performance will also include Renee’s original projections.

In conjunction with her residency in Seattle, the Seattle Public Library and the Northwest Film Forum will screen two films: one from the 1920s and one from 2015, featuring Renee’s original film scores, recorded by her own ensemble, the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project. Thursday, June 14, 6:30pm at SPL’s Microsoft Auditorium to be followed by a Q&A about her unique processes, ideas and themes.

Bit Graves is the duo of Matt Collins and Ben Roth. They use strongly timed programming to live-process analog machines, creating sounds which range from ambient to abrasive. In 2017, their music was used as the soundtrack to the Harmony Korine short film “DRUM ASS” in an exhibit at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Jordan Rundle makes sound and images. He works in many forms and mediums, including digital art, music, collage, video and graphic design. He is a member of the Seattle quartet Newaxeyes and makes music under his own name and as Sorcha Faal.

Unpredictability and adventurousness pervade Marcus Price‘s electronic music. He takes elements of IDM, noise, and ambient to build perversely complicated and mangled compositions that keep you guessing and reeling in most peculiar ways.

Life is No Way to Treat an Animal II is the second installment of commissions concerts by Seattle based guitarist Satchel Henneman. With a diverse range of composers, each working in very different musical realms, this project offers a broad perspective on current musical practices. Though the conventions of these composers vary widely, these works find commonality in the sensation of something new.

Program:

for solo guitar – Anne Goldberg-Baldwin (Boston)

Diurnal Summer – Randy Hathaway (Washington)

Etude for Electric Guitar – Ava Mendoza (Brooklyn)

Satchelinianna – Ian O’Sullivan (Oahu)

Redoubling – Jeff Bowen (Seattle)

three fragments of an incomplete whole – Alessandro Rovegno (Minneapolis)

Fiery – Zach Watkins (Oakland)

Satchel Henneman is a skilled classical and improvising guitarist, performance artist, and composer. He is a recent graduate of Cornish College of the Arts’ music department, where he cultivated a strong relationship and foundation with the world of choreography and movement. Satchel is committed to performing music of living composers, particularly works by his fellow colleagues and fellow artists. he has performed in many masterclasses and concerts around Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. Satchel will be starting his graduate studies at Yale University in the Fall.

Chicago saxophonist/composer Ken Vandermark and New York trumpet stalwart Nate Wooley had been operating in each other’s orbits for several years, having worked together with Paul Lytton, Joe Morris, Agusti Fernandez, and Terrie Ex- before putting together their duo project in October 2013, when they toured the United States for the first time. Vandermark and Wooley have worked together to create an organic combination of the jazz tradition, free improvisation, and modern composition, and have then placed it into the raw and intimate context of this duo.

Presented by Earshot Jazz & Nonsequitur.

Watch video excerpts of this show thanks to elhotrod32.