Presenting creative music in Seattle since 2013
General announcements
But we expect they will settle down before long.
The Central Committee has been holding meetings, discussing semantics and identity, and engaging in behind-the-scenes maneuvers which will hopefully prove fruitful soon. Watch for announcements as facts become nailed down.
The bottom line is that it is our full intention to produce at least one event in 2025.
After many meetings and much work checking out various venues in the Seattle area, the Central Committee has come to the unfortunate conclusion that it will not be possible to put on a festival in 2024.
That being said, we are determined to bring back the kind of eclectic and creative music our audience has come to expect from us, and we’re confident we’ll be able to work out our issues in time to present an event next year.
We’d like to thank everyone for their patience, and remind you to keep supporting live music!
While plans for a 2024 Seaprog festival are still in the early stages, we’ve got a special Seaprog Presents event coming up. On Monday January 22 at Nectar Lounge, we’re proud to cosponsor Tony Levin with Band of Brothers, featuring the famous bassist with his brother Pete on keyboards along with brothers Joe and Pat LaBarbera on drums and saxophone respectively. We’re all familiar with Tony Levin’s work with King Crimson and Stick Men, and many of us are also aware that he’s played jazz as well. Pete Levin has had a long career as a jazz pianist, working quite a bit with Gil Evans, but having credits with David Sanborn, Jimmy Cobb, Freddie Hubbard, Paul Simon, John Scofield, and many more. Pat LaBarbera’s credits include Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones, Bruce Cockburn, and others, while Joe has worked with Woody Herman, Chuck Mangione, Bill Evans, Tony Bennett, and Diane Schuur, along with numerous others. The quartet follows after Levin Brothers, a group which has released three albums to date. Their sets feature an interesting combination of jazz standards, originals, and pieces drawn from Tony’s non-jazz work rearranged.
Opening the show we have local musicians Dennis Rea (guitar) and Jim DeJoie (woodwinds), both of whom are in Moraine, but have extensive backgrounds in jazz as well. We hope you’ll join us for a night of great music based in jazz, but reaching beyond typical boundaries. What else are you going to do on a Monday night in January?
Tickets are available online now, and don’t forget to express your interest on the Facebook event.
The next in our Seaprog Presents series events will take place on September 21 at the Royal Room. This show will feature Guitar Cult, a collection of guitarists assembled by composer Ben McAllister to play his multi-guitar pieces. Also on the bill is the Seattle Guitar Circle, a long-running project of flexible membership coordinated by Steve Ball.
Seattle composer / guitarist Ben McAllister (Degenerate Art Ensemble, Wizard Prison, Tuktu, Medicine Hat) has been growing the Guitar Cult over the last 6 years — first as an 11-piece Ebow choir in 2017 for a one-off show at UW’s Meany Theater, evolving into a tight unit of six electric guitars. At last, they rise from the pandemic ashes, playing their first show together since 2020. Honing McAllister’s interlocking communal guitar excursions and adding drummer Neil Wilson has sharpened the work into precise hypnotic windows, which may call to mind the early phase musics of Steve Reich or Louis Andriessen but with a rock vocabulary.
Seattle Guitar Circle was founded in 1993 by Steve Ball, Bill Rieflin and Bill Van Buren. For 30 years, they have been playing eclectic, polyrhythmic prog chamber music arranged for large acoustic guitar ensemble all over the Seattle area. Seattle Guitar Circle has many related sub-groups such as Tuning the Air (seven years of weekly shows at Freemont Abby), Tiny Orchestral Moments (7+ years of workshops and live shows), and Argentina’s Electric Gauchos, recording and performing in Seattle since 1997.
This international community was initially born via Robert Fripp’s ‘Guitar Craft’ workshops that began in 1985. Each SGC performance is a combination of tightly-arranged chaos, layered guitars, ‘circulations’ — where each guitarist plays one note at a time in evolving melodies — and more.
SGC performs collaborative repertoire for layered guitars and voices including structured improvisation that sounds composed and composed collaboration that sounds improvised. This 2023 ‘Simple Songs’ performance brings to life new arrangements of pieces by Charles Ives, Chick Corea, Erik Satie, Hanai Rani, John Coltrane, Jon Brion, Jonny Greenwood, Leo Brouwer, Meredith Monk, Robert Fripp, Ryuichi Sakamoto — as well as new work from composers within the core SGC team.
Doors at 6:30, music begins at 7:30. Tickets $15 advance, $20 at the door.