2004 Seattle Improvised Music Festival
Saturday, February 21 · Consolidated Works
500 Boren Avenue N · 8 P.M. · $5-15 sliding scale donationThingsome Q
Tari Nelson-Zagar, Tom Swafford, Paul Rucker & Tara Flandreau
(Seattle, NYC)Thingsome Q:
Conceived: on a cheap date in the U-district in 1995.
Born: at the Earshot Jazz Festival in 1995: (Tari Nelson-Zagar, violin & contrabass; Eyvind Kang, violin; Matthew Sperry, contrabass; Christian Asplund, viola; Brent Arnold, cello).
Raised: various clubdates in Seattle (TNZ, MS, CA, BA)
Kicked out of the house: during a performance with Trudy Morse and Kidd Jordan (Stuart Dempster and Joe McPhee helped out too), 1996 Earshot Jazz Festival (TNZ, MS, CA, BA).
First public sex: Sonarchy Radio Broadcast, 1997 (then KCMU 90.3). We almost got busted!!! (TNZ, MS, CA, BA, EK).
First baby: Beautiful CD of Christian Asplund’s chamber opera “The Archivist” (TNZ, MS, CA, BA, Kelly Jeppesen (violin)).
First separation: Christian moves away, Matthew moves away…
Mortgage burning: SeaImpFest 2004 (Tari Nelson-Zagar, violin; Tom Swafford, violin; Tara Flandreau, viola; Paul Rucker, cello).
Thingsome Q has threaded its way through the Seattle improvised music scene for nearly 10 years. The founding members of Thingsome Q started a robust tradition of fostering totally improvising string ensembles in all of the music communities they live in. Our current members bring many years of experience in improvised music, composition, jazz, and collaboration with spoken-word and dance to the ensemble. Now a bicoastal endeavor including Tara Flandreau from NYC, some of the improvising string ensembles we have participated in include String Beast (Seattle) and the Emergency String Quartet (SF Bay Area).
Third-generation violinist Tari Nelson-Zagar was born and raised in Montana, nine miles east of the Continental Divide. Indoctrinated into the hierarchical and competitive mode of music-making called Western European Classical Tradition, Tari excelled at competing for scholarships, principal chairs, solo performance opportunities, and the like. Upon learning the phrase "political economy," she applied it to her knowledge of the "music industry" and took a long break.
After the break, Tari pursued a new mode of expression: improvised music and new music. Involved in a plethora of jazz, improvising, and new music ensembles, some of the more pivotal of which included Inside/Out, Thingsome Q, Chimp, Cipher, Noise Complaint, Seattle Chainsaw Quintet, and Girl of the Year, all featuring a diverse collection of Northwest jazz players and improvisers. As a presenter, Tari founded and curated Resonant/Circuit, a series for improvised music, from 1997-99. She has also contributed to many recordings by area artists, including Christian Asplund and SEXO, Jessamine, Sun City Girls, Eyvind Kang, SCO New Works, Free Consultation, and others. Other performance collaborations have included work with choreographers Karn Junkensmith, Joan Laage, and Pat Graney, and poet Marc Macdonald. Tari has written music for Inside/Out, Noise Complaint, the Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet, and others. Currently she is working on a series of etudes for solo violin. This past summer, Tari was artist-not-in-residence at the Montana Artists' Refuge. She is principal second fiddle for the Seattle Creative Orchestra, and can also be heard in collaboration with Jesse Canterbury (clarinet/composition), Angelina Baldoz (trumpet), Adam Diller (clarinet/composition), and a variety of traveling musicians. Overheard after a July 2002 performance: "Some of the things [Tari] does to the violin should be classified as felonies."
Composer/bassist/cellist Paul Rucker moved to Seattle almost six years ago. Since then he has performed with various groups and ensembles. One of two recent CD releases, titled OIL, was just nominated for the Earshot Jazz Album of the Year. The other CD, titled History of an Apology, showcases local talent and includes 17 Northwest Musicians (including Bill Frisell, Bill Horist, Julian Priester, and Michael White, among many others). Both CDs, recorded and produced by Rucker, are released on his locally run company Jackson Street Records.
Tom Swafford was born in Seattle in 1972. After studying jazz piano and classical violin, Tom was introduced to free improvisation when he joined the Tufts University New Music Ensemble in 1991. He continued to improvise while he pursued a Ph.D. in composition at U.C. Berkeley (1995-2001), performing with 024c, Emergency String Quartet, Dan Plonsey, John Schott, Matt Ingalls, Miya Masaoka, and others. He has won several awards for composition, including a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Hertz Traveling Fellowship from U.C. Berkeley. Tom spent a year in Amsterdam studying composition with Louis Andriessen and playing the violin in various improvisation ensembles. He returned to Seattle in 2002 and now plays in several local groups in a wide variety of styles including bluegrass (Devin Brewer), Irish punk (Meisce), string quartets (with his mother and others), and improvised music (Doublends Vert, Tone Action Orchestra, etc.). His compositions can be heard in several concerts this fall (Seattle New Music Ensemble, Tone Action Orchestra, Music Northwest). Tom has also recorded with pop bands (Guster, Papas Fritas, SweetLou) and improv groups (Emergency String Quartet, 024c).
2004 Seattle Improvised Music Festival