Percussionist/composer Don Berman has been a part of the Seattle creative music scene for over thirty years, coming from the Midwest after receiving his musical training at Oberlin College and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where he studied with Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame percussionists Michael Rosen and Thomas Siwe. A key Seattle experience was studying free jazz and improvisation with composer/pianist, Alistair “Al” Hood in the late 1990’s.

Since 2017, Don has maintained a strong musical partnership with composer/multi-instrumentalist Dick Valentine (saxophones, flutes, electronics), meeting weekly to discuss, compose, and play original music. This performance presents Don and Dick’s duo, D2, performing four original pieces:

(00:00) 1. And the Elephant (Berman)
(07:45) 2. Simplest Possible (Valentine)
(17:01) 3. One For Milford (Valentine/Berman)
(24:05) 4. Take 19 (Berman)

THIS CONCERT IS DEDICATED TO MILFORD GRAVES

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Dick Valentine is a composer, improviser, instrumentalist, and performer based in Seattle. Dick’s background includes private and formal studies under Joe Henderson, Janice Giteck, Jarrad Powell, and many, many others. Dick founded and led the influential, widely respected Seattle avant-jazz quartet Far Corner for 15 years. In pre-pandemic times, he was a core ensemble member of Seattle-based ensembles including Banda Gozona, Al Hood Quintet and Workshop, Seattle Turkish Mešk, Gamelan Pacifica, et al. Here’s hoping those musical institutions return to viability and public performances in months to come!

Reflections on Isolation is an experimental work that imagines a psychic landscape, making a journey through it. We encounter several distinct interior monologues as they emerge and express themselves, each with its own voice, its own degree of urgency, its own emotional color and direction, whether questioning, aggressive, meditative, tender, confused, or confident. Sometimes we hear their voices overlap, but it’s never clear if they are able to interact with their environment or with each other. Dick performed all instruments heard in the piece: saxophones, flutes, percussions, and electronics. Enjoy!

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Ramen Trio was formed in 2016 by three veterans of the Seattle music scene with the purpose of writing, improvising and performing music that branches out while at the same time acknowledges the lifeblood of music that came before. The band combines form and freedom through composition, improvisation, jazz and contemporary classical styles while adding splashes of folk and rock resulting in an open-ended dance of ideas. Any player can “float to the top” at almost any time once these guys start rolling. They are currently working towards making their second studio recording.

James DeJoie (clarinet, bass clarinet) has been playing, writing and performing in Seattle for over thirty years. From classical performances to electronic progressive rock and back again, James keeps evolving. After graduating from Central Washington University, he toured extensively throughout the US and internationally for 10 years before settling back into the Seattle area in the early 2000’s.

Doug Lilla (5-string bass guitar) moved to Seattle in 1982 to study with Gary Peacock and played upright bass throughout his younger years, but switched to bass guitar after his hands voiced their unhappiness. His hands are happy now.

Jay Weaver (drums) has been playing in various Jazz, Rock, Country and Cajun bands in the Seattle area since the 1980s.

(00:00) Resembling
(04:16) The Hat Slips Under the Surface
(9:08) A Priori
(14:27) Absorbed
(20:52) Cluster
(26:41) Is Someone There?
(33:20) Keep Your Eyes Peeled

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Garrett Moore (drums) / Greg Kelley (trumpet) / John Seman (contrabass) / Jeffery Taylor (electric guitar)

Untitled Free Improvisations – Live Recordings 2017 – 2019

The GMQ churn through a gamut of freely improvised sounds encompassing the meditative, reflective, harsh, ugly and abrasive. Delve into an elixir of expansive psychedelic free improvisations that constantly unfold and meld into swirling elastic aural terrors and collapsing black holes of sound.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Rich Hinklin (1962-2021) was a much-loved presence on the more adventurous fringe of the Northwest rock scene. A gifted multi-instrumentalist whose work combined taste, technique, and humor, he was a member of such left-field bands as Utterance Tongue, Pitbull Babysitter, Gumshen, and his periodic Red Fable project with rotating musicians. Rich also mentored a generation of younger artists as a longtime instructor of audio engineering at the Art Institute of Seattle. Rich was very pleased with this recent Red Fable improvisation recorded by his AIS students under his direction, and hoped to make it public – we offer it here to honor his memory and acknowledge his family’s deep loss. The session includes Don Berman on drums, Dennis Rea on guitar, and Rich on electric bass, keyboards, and mix.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Clarinetist, composer, and improviser James Falzone is an acclaimed member of the international jazz and creative music scenes, a veteran contemporary music lecturer and clinician, and an award-winning composer who has been commissioned by chamber ensembles, dance companies, choirs, and symphony orchestras around the globe. He leads his own ensembles Allos Musica, The Renga Ensemble, and the duo Wayfaring with Chicago bassist/vocalist Katie Ernst, and has released a series of critically acclaimed recordings on Allos Documents, the label he founded in 2000. Also a respected educator and scholar, James is presently the Chair of Music at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington.

The Already and the Not Yet – Improvisations on clarinet, piano, penny whistles, and shruti box, recorded live at the Chapel on April 22, 2021.

Digital album available to purchase on BandCamp.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Beverly Setzer holds degrees in clarinet performance from the University of Washington where she studied with William McColl and William O. Smith. She is a member of Symphony Tacoma, Roadside Attraction, Cascade Symphony, the Seattle Bass Clarinet Project, and was Principal Clarinet of La Filarmónica del Bajío in Guanajuato, Mexico. She enjoys playing a wide variety of music ranging from classical to polkas to jazz.

Greg Powers, performs on trombone, tuba, ukulele, didjeridu, garden hoses, etc. He is at home playing Salsa, Rock, Banda, Dixie, Swing, Avant Garde, and Jazz. A Fulbright Fellow to India, Powers is a pioneer in adapting Hindustani music to the trombone and is the only trombonist on earth performing in the style of Dhrupad.

Bev and Greg have been playing all sorts of music together since they met at the University of Washington in the early 80s. They were founding members of the New Art Orchestra and would play improvised operas on full moon nights at midnight on the Red Square of the UW campus. They play in the Lake Washington Symphony, Banda Vagos, the Mellifluous Zephyrs, and the Bavarian Village Band.

This improvised session was recorded live in the Chapel on April 19, 2021. Bev played bass clarinet and PVC pipe “didjeridu”. Greg played trombone, tuba, and flugelbone.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Jim Knodle has been a member of the free jazz group Holus Bolus, and a founding member of Circular Cowboys and Inside Out. He has recorded and/or performed with Andrew Hill, Caroline Kraabel, Dave Storrs, Jonathan Edwards, Lynette Westendorf, Michael Vlatkovich, Paul Rucker, Robin Holcomb, Sue Ann Harkey, Vinnie Golia, Wayne Horvitz and others. He has released several CDs: Wending (Nine Winds) and Unprepared, with Dave Storrs (Louie Records); Keeping the Devil Out, with poet Pamela Moore Dionne (self-released); and This Is Not About the Pecking Order with Big Crinkly Trio. His compositions have been performed in concerts presented by the Open Music Workshop, the Earshot Jazz Festival, Marzena Arts’ Spring Festival of Contemporary Music, Portland’s Creative Music Guild, the Dumaurier Jazz Festival, Seattle Composers’ Salon, Tacoma New Music, Tone Action Orchestra, the Composers and Improvisers Workshop, and the Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble. Recently he has performed with Big Crinkly Trio and Sidewinder.

Born in Moscow, Russia, and growing up in suburban Milwaukee, violinist Kirill Polyanskiy is pursuing a double major at WSU in Composition and Violin Performance. Kirill spends his free time arranging for the Materia Collective, the Seattle Video Game Orchestra and Choir, and practicing his violin. He is the Concertmaster of the WSU Symphony Orchestra and plays in the first violin section of the Washington Idaho Symphony.

This improvised duo set was recorded live in the Chapel.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Veteran improvisor Sue Ann Harkey goes back to her solo prepared guitar roots on that $50 electric 12-string she bought over 40 years ago. Each piece is a change in implementation on an open-tuning that can do no wrong. Here is a repertoire of sounds drawn from the intimacy she has with her instrument and her proven experimental approach.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Born on Capitol Hill, raised on Suquamish Tribal land (Seattle’s tribe). Grew up at the end of a road in the woods which has affected most of the music and sounds I am attracted to. Multi-instrumentalist performing in the area since the early 70’s in multiple roles, genres, styles. Longer bio. Mystic Weirdos.

Most if not all are combinations of live collections of sounds manipulated (or not) and electrical/midi samples etc…

(00:00) 25 21 20-1 (electronics)
(00:19) 78-2 (vinyl)
(01:27) December gurgles (toilet)
(04:31) Feet (electro-acoustic)
(09:05) Kitchen Symphony #1 (Live)
(14:58) chorale-s (synth and live)
(19:05) 78-1 (phonograph)
(24:08) nobody’s listening (radio)
(29:17) Silence 3 (found sounds)
(33:39) Finale (samples and stuff)

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.