Samantha Boshnack’s 'Seismic Belt: Live in Santa Monica' CD Release // Abbey Blackwell’s Rae
$12-$15
A celebration of a new release by Seattle-based trumpeter and composer Samantha Boshnack on Orenda Records. Seismic Belt explores the seismic activity along the Ring of Fire – the horseshoe-shaped region surrounding the Pacific that contains the majority of the world’s volcanoes and volcanos. This music experiments with the friction of geographic shifts to create a new harmonic topography and examines our relationship with the Earth, including the elements of risk and faith in that uneasy cohabitation. Movements of the work draw on influences from some of the cultures and people living on the Ring, in places such as Chile, Japan, Alaska, Iceland, Western Samoa, and Russia.
This performance features Boshnack on trumpet & flugelhorn, Chris Credit on tenor & baritone saxophones, Alex Guy on violin & viola, Begin Scarseth on violin, Alex Chadsey on piano, Troy Schiefelbein on bass, and Max Wood on drums. This is an ideal instrumentation to tackle these vital, sometimes volatile compositions, and it allows Boshnack to explore the median between the charms of her two primary vehicles as a bandleader up to this point – the 14-piece B’shnorkestra, with its touches of symphonic grandeur, and the small-group avant-jazz dynamism of the Sam Boshnack Quintet.
With some serendipity, Boshnack’s visionary new project was birthed in a town of many fault lines, Los Angeles. As the 2018 recipient of the 18th Street Arts Center’s prestigious Make Jazz Fellowship, an honor sponsored by the Herb Alpert Foundation, Boshnack was able to work on her commissioned piece over a three-month period. Samantha Boshnack’s Seismic Belt Live in Santa Monica is a live recording of the culminating concert of the residency.
Rae is a new group led by bassist Abbey Blackwell, with the effortless playing of Ronan Delisle on guitar and impeccable drumming of Evan Woodle. Abbey has compiled a set of songs with lyrical tunes and sometimes jarring harmonies that complement each other, offering relatable melodies with an avant-garde undercurrent.
As a musician, Abbey has performed with pop and rock groups including La Luz, Great Spiders, and Thousands, in addition to recording on soundtracks and studio albums by Myrkur, Shana Cleveland, Skyler Skjelset, and Macklemore, among others. She is currently in the Master of Music in Jazz and Improvised Music program at UW.