EyeShotJazz | Jazz Photography

Earshot Jazz presented Trio Orangutan in the 2nd in the series, Jazz: The Second Century last night at the Chapel Performance space.Trio Orangutan is Kate Olson (soprano saxophone), Naomi Siegel (trombone) and Jason Levis (percussion).

They play composed pieces and improvise in search of the “timbral possibilities of trombone, soprano and percussion,” Olson writes. As the Syrinx Too, Olson and Siegel have worked on those possibilities at the Racer Sessions, Gallery 1412 and elsewhere.

Olson holds a master’s degree from the University of Michigan. She is an area educator and performs with the Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra and the Seattle Conduction Band. Naomi Siegel is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory and is now an active performer and music educator in the Seattle area. She regularly performs with Thione Diop, Picoso and other Latin, world and experimental groups. Siegel teaches private trombone lessons and is a member of the Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra. Composer, drummer and UC Berkeley doctoral candidate Jason Levis, currently based in Berlin, makes it a trio.

Seattle musicians have new works in development all the time – at house concerts, at weekly jam sessions, in basement studios and at clubs and cafes around Seattle, including the Seamonster and the Royal Room. Jazz: The Second Century is Earshot Jazz’s open question to that artistic community: so, what’s happening now?

Submissions are considered by a peer-review panel made up of musicians, journalists, former Second Century performers and concert producers. Earshot Jazz thanks all the unique and enterprising creative musicians of this city that submitted their work for consideration. Out of all the materials – a range of home recordings, studio materials, live video clips, full bands, duos and more – this year’s schedule follows below with occasional statements submitted with the artist materials.

Earshot Jazz presented Bill Horist in the 2nd in the series, Jazz: The Second Century last night at the Chapel Performance space.

Internationally prolific in the alternative and underground and in rock, jazz, avant-garde and folk music, Seattle guitarist Bill Horist has appeared on 70 recordings and has performed well over 1,000 concerts throughout North America, Mexico, Europe and Japan. He’s worked with John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, Stuart Dempster, Trey Gunn, Secret Chiefs 3, Shazaad Ismaily, Saadet Turkoz, Jack Wright, Amy Denio, Eyvind Kang, Paul Hoskin, Wally Shoup, Paul Kikuchi, Jessica Lurie, Tucker Martine and Master Musicians of Bukkake, Axolotl and the Paul Rucker Ensemble in addition to extensive solo activity. Horist is an Artist Trust grant and fellowship recipient (2006, 2005). From Horist’s Second Century submission: I view jazz as an aspiration more than a genre. … For those that see jazz as a genre, it might be difficult to consider that what I do is related somehow. … I suppose it becomes difficult for a forward-thinking idea to countenance the gravity of its own growing history, but if there’s any place where the duality can exist, it’s here, in this music.

Bill Horist opened up the evening and was followed by Trio Orangutan.

Seattle musicians have new works in development all the time – at house concerts, at weekly jam sessions, in basement studios and at clubs and cafes around Seattle, including the Seamonster and the Royal Room. Jazz: The Second Century is Earshot Jazz’s  open question to that artistic community: so, what’s happening now?

Submissions are considered by a peer-review panel made up of musicians, journalists, former Second Century performers and concert producers. Earshot Jazz thanks all the unique and enterprising creative musicians of this city that submitted their work for consideration. Out of all the materials – a range of home recordings, studio materials, live video clips, full bands, duos and more – this year’s schedule follows below with occasional statements submitted with the artist materials.

– Schraepfer Harvey

New York-based composer and trombonist Andy Clausen joined former tongue-in-cheek cross-town rival Riley Mulherkar (now classmates at Juilliard) to present the complete Birth of the Cool suite with a Seattle nonet, including French hornist Tom Varner and alto saxophonist Mark Taylor last week at the Chapel Performance Space presented by Earshot Jazz.

To bring a faithful rendition of the classic 1949-1950 recordings, Clausen and trumpeter Mulherkar have compiled parts from various sources and transcribed and edited scores for the complete Birth of the Cool suite. Clausen “I find this music compelling enough to merit serious investigation … I have personally dedicated dozens of hours to copying out every part from the scores and preparing the music to be as accurate as possible. This music needs to be heard.”

If you haven’t heard Birth of the Cool, get it and listen immediately: the legendary nonet with Miles out front plays with the timbre and density of combinations of trombone, tuba, French horn, alto and baritone saxes and rhythm section – lasting as some of the most elegant approaches for groups of its kind. For Clausen, a personal investigation of this suite is not anachronism but a natural extension of his work for his Wishbone Ensemble, an acoustic group featuring his original music for trombone, clarinet, piano, accordion and drums.

Clausen graduated from Roosevelt High School and was the recipient of the 2009 Gerald Wilson Award for Jazz Composition from the Monterey Jazz Festival. An active composer, arranger and bandleader since the age of 14, Clausen has released two albums of original music to critical acclaim. The New York Times has described his work as “sleek, dynamic large-group jazz, a whirl of dark-hued harmony and billowing rhythm.”

Riley Mulherkar, a graduate of Garfield High School, was the recipient of the 2010 Ella Fitzgerald Outstanding Soloist award from the Essentially Ellington Competition; the New Yorker calls him a “brilliant teen-aged trumpeter”; and Wynton Marsalis named Mulherkar among a high-profile list of the Next Generation of Jazz Greats in a recent interview in JET magazine.

Pianist Sunna Gunnlaugs performed with bassist Thorgrimur Jonsson and drummer Scott McLemore at Tula’s last month in an Earshot Jazz presentation that was sublime and delightful.

 Also the trio on Gunnlaugs’ latest release, Long Pair Bond (2011), the patient and measured group works in a sonic space redolent of familiar environments – dynamic and sometime dusky Reykjavik, Iceland, bordered by sea and mountains. On her first trio album since her debut in 1997, a now more mature Gunnlaugs presents this music with a humble awareness and connectedness.

Gunnlaugs writes about her recent experience at performance hall Sendesaal at the jazzahead! conference in Bremen, Germany: “It was humbling to sit down at the Steinway D in this beautiful room and think that this was where Keith Jarrett played his solo concert (the Bremen part at least) and that Thelonious Monk had played there and also Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Jan Garbarek with Bobo Stenson and the list goes on. Holy moley. Humbling? Yes sir! We all just loved the sound in there.”

As a child on the small Seltjarnarnes peninsula not far from Reykjavik, Gunnlaugs began taking lessons on the organ. It was the gift of a Bill Evans trio record, You’re Gonna Hear from Me, that brought her to modern jazz. Not long after, in Brooklyn, fresh from the William Patterson University jazz program in New Jersey, Gunnlaugs featured connections with Tony Malaby, Drew Gress and drummer-cum-husband McLemore on the 1999 recordings Mindful and Songs from Iceland. Mindful was chosen as one of the top ten CDs of the year by the Virginian Pilot; Songs from Iceland, released a decade later, features Gunnlaugs’ special relationship with the material – five Icelandic folk songs that Gunnlaugs grew up with. “These were tunes that we were playing on concerts … it seemed important to document,” she says.

 

Gunnlaugs enjoys touring and has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. Seven releases as a leader have consistently met critical praise. Now living in Iceland, she frequently performs with her Iceland trio featuring bassist Jonsson and drummer McLemore. More about Sunna Gunnlaugs at sunnagunnlaugs.com and sunnagunnlaugs.bandcamp.com.