EyeShotJazz | Jazz Photography

John Savage on didgeridoo and Vusac on electronic keyboards and other things – 2nd Century Savage played last week in the final concert of the Earshot Jazz concert series Jazz: The Second Century at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. A really good show in a wonderful place to hear music on a warm summer evening.

Vusac (aka Isaac Peachin) on electronic keyboards and other things

John C. Savage on flute.

A lot of you missed a really good show tonight at the final concert of the July concert series Jazz: The Second Century at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. It turned out not to be as hot as it was last night. There was a cool breeze drafting in the windows as the Good Shepherd Center sits on top of a hill and the space is on the 4th floor with a view of the sun setting over the Olympics.
The duo put on an interesting program mixing live instruments with electronic. I recommend checking them out the next time.

2nd Century Savage is saxophonist, flutist, and composer John C. Savage with electronica artist, vusac (aka Isaac Peachin). Their mission, they say, is to expand the definition of jazz to include electronic instruments and live production techniques in tandem with contemporary jazz improvisation. The results are haunting, transporting, and strikingly novel. Their performances give the impression of swirling planes of sound, some melodic and familiar, some protean and mysterious, folding through untold dimensions of space and the mind.

They say: “Although we are a duo, we have the potential to suspend a single note in space, or to summon the power of an orchestral wall of sound. We achieve this dynamic range with interactive software sampling, effect processors, and virtuosic instrumental technique.”
Vusac, who arrived in Seattle recently from Brooklyn, was a founding member of the electro-rock combo Lution where he developed a transporting style of acoustic collage locked down by drum-and-bass grooves. He pulled material from TV and online media and created a trance-inducing sense of collective unconscious.

John C. Savage has won high praise for his performances from his performances from such publications as Down Beat, which called his flue sound “yearning”; The Guardian (UK), which praised his “exquisite” soloing; and Willamette Week (Portland), which called him “an extremely thoughtful and rigorous improviser” and “a badass, knock-down-drag-out force.” A PhD candidate in flute performance and improvisation at New York University who also teaches at Western Oregon University, Savage collaborates often with musicians, poets, dancers, painters, and technologists. He has performed and recorded with the late, great jazz pianist, Andrew Hill, and with the Kitsune Ensemble, his duo Cartridge with Will Redmond (aka BlipVert), Groove Revelation, The Savage 3, and poet Claudia F. Manz.

More photos to come in a day or two.

Seattle Phonographers Union in performance at the Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Wallingford on July 23.

The Seattle Phonographers Union, a collective of Seattle sound artists who improvise from their libraries of field recordings from around the world gave an interesting performance Thursday night as part of the Earshot jazz  July series of concerts devoted to “Jazz: The Second Century”

The Seattle Phonographers Union credo is to forego processing their raw sound materials with software and hardware, and instead to strive to create compelling juxtapositions of everyday and esoteric sounds to arrive at surreal soundscapes. So, they say, “a flock of pigeons may alight near water and distant temple bells while a long wire fence shimmers and thwaps in the wind.”
The members of the group are Steve Barsotti, Pete Comley, Christopher DeLaurenti, Doug Haire, Susie Kozawa, Dale Lloyd, Perri Lynch, Robert Millis, Toby Paddock, Steve Peters, and Jonathan Way. Barsotti explains the group’s relation to jazz: “While the SPU may sonically sound distant from the traditional jazz intrumentarium, our unusual approach honors the core of jazz and all improvised music: listening.” They proceed without a predetermined format, scores, charts, or even cues. “Collectively, we wait and listen,” says Barsotti. “Without conferring, we trust our ears to listen to ourselves and each other, fashioning immediate juxtapositions, gradual contrasts, and subtle layers.”The uncanny results are strangely provocative. And, as Barsotti says, “some members do not believe what we make is music; others within the SPU stoutly do.” More: http://accretions.com/catalog/phonographersunioin.asp
Photo by Seattle Photographer Daniel Sheehan  specializing in portraits and photojournalism for publications and corporations and a Seattle wedding photographer,  shooting weddings with a photojournalistic style creating artistic documentary Seattle wedding photography.