Tag: Stuart Dempster

From Seattle’s Wayward Music:

Saturday, January 24, 2009
Eric Glick Rieman & Lung Tree
8:00 PM; $5 – $15 sliding scale donation at the door. Presented by Nonsequitur. (Photo: Peter B. Kaars)

Lung Tree is a trio of Bay Area composer/improviser Eric Glick Rieman (prepared Rhodes Electric Piano and piano) and Seattle musicians Lesli Dalaba (trumpet), and Stuart Dempster (trombone.) Brought together by Glick Rieman in 2004, the trio has released one CD on the ReR Megacorp label and performed sporadically since then. Coming from the subtle edges of post-modern Jazz and New Music, Lung Tree’s members have worked (as individuals) with artists as diverse as Fred Frith, Elliott Sharp, Cecil Taylor, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Troupe.

With a wealth of brass tacts and several different keyboards, these three tone-painters sketch Ambient images out of silence and onto empty space. Often, Dalaba’a yearning trumpet tones hover above Dempster’s deep, foggy trombone drones, as Rieman layers in ominous synth washes or chromatic piano lines. Mutes and mouthpiece manipulations vary the brass voices, and ‘prepared’ electric piano bristles and chimes percussively. Working within a controlled, narrow range of gestures, they overlap fugitive pitches that color the air before they mutate into new shapes or gradually evaporate. — Art Lange, The Wire

Friday, January 23, 2009
Affinity Chamber Players
8:00 PM; donations taken at the door

Washington Composers Forum presents Affinity, performing new works received in response to a call for scores for a reading, rehearsal and inclusive conversation on the compositional and collaborative process. Composers Matthew Fields, Christopher Gainey, and Helena Michelson will discuss their work with audience members in a workshop style.

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Is That Jazz?: Elliott Sharp Triptet
8:00 PM; $15 suggested donation.

The Seattle Composers’ Salon announces the first annual IS THAT JAZZ? festival, taking place on three Thursday nights, January 8, 15, and 22. Local and national acts come together for six inspired and compelling sets. The festival also invites artists and audience members to explore the underlying question: Is that jazz? Meet the artists and discuss the music at informal receptions after each concert, and participate in an on-line discussion blog to begin a conversation about music and art in the twenty-first century.

Elliott Sharp (NYC)
The Is That Jazz? Festival is very happy to welcome Elliott Sharp to Seattle for this rare Pacific Northwest solo show. Elliott has been for the past 20 years one of New York’s most influential and prolific musicians. His performances are visceral and powerful, raw and full of urban energy. Don’t miss this chance to see a true genius and pioneer of 21st century experimentalism.

Triptet (Seattle/NYC)
Grungy, groovy and free. First playing all together in a Sun Ra Tribute band earlier this year, these three musicians all bring a sense of composition and organic form to their improvisations. Saxophonist Michael Monhart recently re-located to New York City from Seattle, but he is in town tonight for this performance with guitarist Tom Baker and percussionist Greg Campbell.