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, embracing haunting lyricism, enigmatic textures, agile improvisation, and the raw dynamism of rock. He has performed widely in North America, Asia, and Europe and has led or been a key contributor to numerous innovative groups, including Moraine, Land, Stackpole, Savant, Earthstar, Identity Crisis, Iron Kim Style, Tempered Steel, Chekov, and Ting Bu Dong. He has performed or recorded with such prominent creative musicians as European free jazz legend Han Bennink, Chinese rock megastar Cui Jian, acclaimed French composer Hector Zazou, German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze, trombone virtuoso Stuart Dempster, and jazz mainstay John Clayton, as well as members of King Crimson, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ministry, and the Sun Ra Arkestra. He 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 included film, theater, radio, and modern dance, and he has appeared on more than two-dozen recordings to date. He is also an accomplished author whose most recent work is the book Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan.
Rea's music career began in the early 1970s when he formed the eccentric progressive rock group Zuir in his hometown of Utica, New York. In the late 1970s he made a series of albums in Germany with Craig Wuest's proto-electronica group Earthstar. In the early 1980s he collaborated with composer K. Leimer in the pioneering Seattle-based experimental music group Savant. In 1983 he moved to New York City, where he was involved with the downtown new-music community. Since returning to Seattle in the late 1980s, he has performed or recorded with such innovative musicians as Jeff Greinke, Fred Chalenor, Wally Shoup, Bill Horist, Lesli Dalaba, India Cooke, Trey Gunn, Lori Carson, Toshi Makihara, Elizabeth Falconer, Amy Denio, Tucker Martine, Bill Rieflin, Jessica Lurie, Elaine DiFalco, Eyvind Kang, Greg Campbell, Tom Baker, Jim Knodle, Lynette Westendorf, and Olli Klomp.
Between 1989 and 1996 Dennis spent several years living in China and Taiwan, where he gave more than 100 concerts at cultural centers, universities, music conservatories, and clubs, on radio and television, and in sports arenas with the Chinese pop star Zhang Xing. His 1990 solo album for the China Record Company, Shadow in Dreams, sold tens of thousands of copies and was cited among the year's best releases by China Youth Daily. While abroad he organized three of the earliest unofficial concert tours of China by Western bands, comprising more than 40 concerts in Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Kunming, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as a performance at the 1991 Sichuan China International TV Festival that was viewed by a television audience numbering in the hundreds of millions. He has performed with such influential Chinese musicians as Cui Jian, Wang Yong, Liu Yuan, Liang Heping, He Yong, ADO, and Cobra. He has also written extensively about Chinese music in various popular and academic publications including the Routledge Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture. In 2005 he returned to Taiwan for a two-week concert tour with the international bands Jetlegrs and Chekov; in 2008 he again traveled to Taiwan for reunion concerts with his early 1990s Taiwan-based band Identity Crisis and subsequent performances with the international jazz-rock quartet Ting Bu Dong. His pioneering experiences performing in East Asia are chronicled in his book Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan. His CD Views from Chicheng Precipice, a radical reimagining of East Asian traditional music, will be released by MoonJune Records in 2010.
”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
[LAND]
“The first time I heard LAND guitarist Dennis Rea, he was playing the greatest phased guitar solo of all time on Earthstar's 1979 classic of Euro-electronica, French Skyline.” - The Wire (UK)
“...a killer combination of Dennis Rea's part abstract, part high-energy guitar and Lesli Dalaba's blurts and liquid runs on trumpet.” - Encyclopedia of Northwest Music
[MORAINE]
“...with its combination of rock energy, chamber classicism, and sophisticated jazz harmonies, Manifest DeNsity is simply _good_ music - at times, great music - played by an unusually configured collective. Like a square peg and a round hole, Moraine defies reductionist categorization...” - John Kelman, All About Jazz
“[Moraine] morph the best of various musical worlds ... turbulent strings passages, thrusting rhythms, and jubilantly executed melody lines ... There’s a lot to sink your mind’s eye into here, but the ensemble equalizes the cerebral factors with hearty melodies and pumping jazz-rock grooves. ... A musical highlight for 2009, regardless of genre or rigid categorizations...” - Glenn Astarita, Jazz Reviews.com
“...Dark timbres, dense harmonic aggregations, and exotic melodies abound ... while the emphasis here is clearly on ensemble playing, Rea’s guitar work continually imbues the proceedings with splashes of color from his global grab bag of stylistic goodies - including liberal dashes of oriental intrigue.” - Barry Cleveland, Guitar Player
(4 stars) “Instrumental music that is passionate and emotional but complex, challenging, and abstract. ... [Moraine] incorporate elements of everything from Asian music to Middle Eastern/Arabic music to East European gypsy music - and those world music influences only add to Manifest Density's richness.” - Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
“Even more than the inspired solos it is the exotic melodies and crafty arrangements that make this band special. ... quirky, creative and filled with surprising twists and turns.” - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery, NYC
[IRON KIM STYLE]
“Guitarist Dennis Rea has the kind of facility to play anything but the taste to pick his moment, and he slices through the proceedings here with just the right amount of bravado and presence” - Rob Hudson, ModMove.com
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
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