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The Baker/Heaney/Rea Trio is a collaboration of three of Seattle's leading creative guitarists, whose other projects include the Tom Baker Quartet, Sunship, and Moraine. The trio's uncategorizable improvisations draw on modern jazz, free improvisation, adventurous rock, experimental soundscapes, and microtonality, creating a richly detailed aural experience.
Guitarist Tom Baker has been active as a composer, performer, and music producer in the Seattle new-music scene since 1994. He is the artistic director of the Seattle Composers' Salon, and co-founder of the Seattle EXperimental Opera (SEXO). Tom performs on fretted and fretless guitars, and has worked with many innovative musicians, including Stuart Dempster, William O. Smith, Christian Asplund, Chinary Ung, Ellen Fullman, Gino Robair, and Henry Threadgill. He has released two solo albums, and with his band the Tom Baker Quartet released a new album last year, Look What I Found, which has garnered much attention and critical acclaim. Tom has received many grants and awards for his work, including honors from the Seattle Arts Commision, Meet the Composer, Artist Trust, and Jack Straw Productions. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States and Canada, as well as in Holland and England.
Brian Heaney is into small engine repair, ufology, and is a skunkape expert. He also plays guitar.Brian Heaney
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, encompassing haunting lyricism, enigmatic textures, agile improvisation, and the raw dynamism of rock. Over the years Dennis has led or been a key contributor to numerous innovative groups, including Land, Stackpole, Axolotl, Savant, Earthstar, Ink, Eric Apoe & They, Identity Crisis, the Gang of Formosa, Moraine, 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, and trombone virtuoso Stuart Dempster, 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. He was a finalist for Best Guitarist in the 2005 Seattle Weekly Music Awards, and won a Golden Ear Award for Best Northwest Outside Jazz Group in 2000 as leader of the improvising quartet Stackpole. He is also an accomplished author whose most recent work is the book Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan.
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