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Dennis Rea

Dennis Rea's adventurous guitar playing blends modern jazz, creative rock, experimental music, and world musical traditions into an approach that is uniquely his own, marked by haunting lyricism, enigmatic textures, agile improvisation, and the raw dynamism of rock.

Over the years Dennis has led or been a key contributor to such innovative groups as Moraine, LAND, Iron Kim Style, Zhongyu, Stackpole, Savant, Earthstar, Identity Crisis, and Ting Bu Dong. He has performed or recorded with many prominent creative musicians, including acclaimed French composer Hector Zazou, Dutch jazz legend Han Bennink, trombone virtuoso Stuart Dempster, godfather of Chinese rock Cui Jian, and Korean master musician Young Sub Lee, as well as members of King Crimson, Hawkwind, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Santana, Ministry, and the Sun Ra Arkestra. He has performed on three continents at venues such as NEARfest, WOMAD, Beijing International Jazz Festival, Sichuan-China International TV Festival, MuzEnergo Tour of Russia, Ustuu Huree Festival (Tuva), Voice of Nomads Festival (Buryatia), Baja Prog, Sonic Rock Solstice (UK), Bumbershoot, Columbia Gorge Amphitheater, Northwest Folklife Festival, Orion Sound Studios, Earshot Jazz Festival, Chrome Hearts (Los Angeles), and Seattle Art Museum.

Dennis has collaborated with many of the most important figures in contemporary Chinese music and was one of the first Western musicians to record an album for the state-owned China Record Company. His activities have spanned film, theater, radio, and modern dance, and he has appeared on more than 30 recordings to date. He is also an accomplished author whose book Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan will be reissued in an updated edition by Blue Ear Books in early 2015. He is a co-organizer of the annual Seaprog festival and the periodic Zero-G concert series, and for more than a decade co-organized the long- running Seattle Improvised Music Festival.

His current and projects include instrumental avant-rock band Moraine, Giant Steppes, the Denis Rea Time-Lapse Trio, Jon Davis's Zhongyu, processed thumb piano trio Tempered Steel, and the Ballard Guitar Cult.

Awards

Two U.S. Department of State Fulbright-Hays awards; finalist, Best Guitarist, 2005 Seattle Weekly Music Awards; Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award, Best Northwest Outside Jazz Group, 2000, as leader of the improvising quartet Stackpole

Gear

Kiesel S6, Carvin HH2, and Gibson ES-335 guitars; Fender Twin Reverb and BluGuitar amplifiers; numerous effects units, including Fractal FX-8


Tags

4
Interview

Dennis Rea: Zero-G and the Sea Prog Festival

Read "Dennis Rea: Zero-G and the Sea Prog Festival" reviewed by Jack Gold-Molina


Based in Seattle, guitarist Dennis Rea has a long history playing creative and experimental music as well as progressive rock. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he lived and performed in China, putting together some of the earliest tours by Western musicians performing non-mainstream music, and in 2006 he published a book about his experiences there entitled Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan. Rea also has a history of being involved in organizing creative ...

261
Album Review

Iron Kim Style: Iron Kim Style

Read "Iron Kim Style" reviewed by Mark Redlefsen


On Iron Kim Style, guitarist Dennis Rea has created a CD of entirely improvised music, set against themes mostly about North Korea and it's nefarious ruler, Kim Jong-Il. Rea might not have possibly foreseen just how much the tension between North and South Korea would escalate as it has in recent times. The art work on the outside of the CD portrays a very militant landscape of North Korea, with a perfectly scaled photo of Kim Jong-Il inserted into the ...

256
Album Review

Dennis Rea: Views from Chicheng Precipice

Read "Views from Chicheng Precipice" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Seattle-based guitarist Dennis Rea discloses a 360-degree U-turn, contrasting his work with the hemi-powered progressive rock and jazz fusion bands, Iron Kim Style and Moraine. Rea's Asian-derived fusion--of rock, avant-garde, Asian folk and Western classical concepts--spawns a translucent and rather kaleidoscopic genre-busting sequence of musical events.The album opener “Three Views from Chicheng Precipice (after Bai Juyi)," establishes Rea's distinct Asian paradigms, integrated with percussion, strings, woodwinds and off-kilter metrics. He incorporates a myriad of tonal contrasts into his ...

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257

Recording

Now Available: Dennis Rea's "Views from Chicheng Precipice" on Moonjune Records

Now Available: Dennis Rea's "Views from Chicheng Precipice" on Moonjune Records

Source: Michael Ricci

DENNIS REA, guitarist and leader of critically acclaimed bands IRON KIM STYLE and MORAINE (which performed at the recent NearFest 2010), has released his solo album Views from Chicheng Precipice Internationally acclaimed for his work with art-rock juggernaut Moraine and free-jazz provocateurs Iron Kim Style (MoonJune Records MJR028 and MJR031), guitarist and composer Dennis Rea presents a completely different but equally compelling facet of his musical personality with his most ambitious release to date, Views from Chicheng Precipice. A key ...

"Dennis is a young, very talented musician who I think will develop into something quite interesting" - Stan Getz in 1979

"One of the most talented instrumentalists in the region, Rea has long distinguished himself in varied settings, creating a dynamic, lyrical, enigmatic blend of modern jazz, boundary-pushing rock, experimental music, and world music traditions. In Seattle, he has participated in some of the most impressive homegrown musical outfits, including the late 1990s juggernaut quartet Stackpole, with whom he won the 2000 Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award for best Northwest 'outside jazz.'" - Earshot Jazz

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Moraine: Groundswell

MoonJune Records
2014

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Jim Cutler Jazz...

Jamco Music
2014

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Shredder Orpheus...

Light in the Attic / Traction
2014

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Metamorphic Rock...

MoonJune Records
2012

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