Interview by Todd Matthews

When the Seattle Improvised Music Festival began in 1985, there was very little indication it would evolve into the longest-running annual showcase for freely improvised music in the United States. The festival has hosted some of the finest local, national and international improvisers, including Wally Shoup (also a festival organizer), Amy Denio, Wayne Horvitz, Steve Fisk, Craig Flory, Matt Chamberlain, Brad Hauser, Eyvind Kang, Tom Djll, and Reuben Radding. I recently caught up with one of the festival's co-organizers, Dennis Rea, to talk about the event, as well as the genre of free improvised music.

TODD MATTHEWS: How did this festival get started, and what was the climate like eighteen years ago for improvised music?

DENNIS REA: Originally, it wasn't even conceived as being a public event. The festival's originator, Paul Hoskin, was always a part of free improvisation. The first event was basically an invitation-only at a big loft space in Belltown. Twelve to fifteen people around town got together. The way Paul conceived it, he put the musicians together in unforeseen combinations in order to provoke them out of their habits and routines. I think people were pleased enough with the success of that event that he staged another one a year later.

TODD MATTHEWS: For someone who may not have an understanding of free improvised music, name some musicians who would serve as a good introduction.

Seattle Improvised Music Festival
Co-Organizer Dennis Rea
+ + photo courtesy Dennis Rea + +

DENNIS REA: Well, there has always been the problem of defining improvised music. What has come to be the genre of free improvisation is usually traced back to a handful of guys in Britain during the 1960s. The people who were sort of the spearheads of the movement include Derek Bailey and Evan Parker. For a younger-generation improviser, John Zorn is a good example. Although, he doesn't define his activity to that type of music, he's done an awful lot of it, and he has organized a lot of the improvised music activity in this country.

TODD MATTHEWS: Free improvised music requires some level of concentration on the part of the audience. Similarly, for someone attending the festival for the first time, what sort of things would he or she need to know about improvised music in order to fully appreciate the performances?

DENNIS REA: That's a good question. One thing about this music, more than any other kind of music, is that the audience completes it. The musical structure isn't necessarily going to be as explicit as it is with composed music. You are watching it happen before your eyes. There is a level of trust among the musicians, and between musicians and the audience. The audience has to believe that musicians are capable of pulling music out of the air, and it's going to be compelling and as emotionally resonant as any other kind of music. The audience participates in the sense that they make the connection. I think it can be truly exciting to watch people in the act of creating something meditative, where there's obviously some synergy and chemistry. I have been asked in the past, and maybe it's a similar question, 'How does the audience know that it isn't just a bunch of random racket?' I think that question presupposes that the audience doesn't have the ability to judge when music is really connecting or not. I believe audiences do have that ability, and it should be fairly obvious when people are playing together as a unit, or whether there are three or four individuals on stage who are not connecting. I think that throughout the history of the festival we have had a very high success rate of music actually catching fire and being meaningful.

This article originally appeared in Tablet

The 18th Seattle Improvised Music Festival begins February 14, 2003 and runs through February 22, 2003. For more information, visit the festival online at http://www.seattleimprovisedmusic.com