- Ryan Berg (Seattle) —bass
- Olli Klomp (Seattle) —drums
- Dennis Rea (Seattle) —guitar
- Karl Scheer (Seattle) —electric violin
- Axel Schunn (Tainan) —guitar, vocals
- Dave Treanor (Tainan) —percussion
China Post: Jetleggers Reunite in Tainan
Tour Dates
Thursday, April 21: Jetlegrs / Chekov
Tainan, Taiwan, Room 335, Kangle Jie No 47 at Fushen Lu
Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Alice's Bar, 65 Wu Fu 4th Lu
Tainan, Taiwan, Armory Pub, 82 Gongyuan South Lu
Tainan, Taiwan, Dirty Roger's, Dongmen Lu
Tainan, Taiwan, Greek restaurant, Gongyuan Lu
Tainan, Taiwan, Eslite Bookstore, Chang Rong Lu near Linshen Lu, 10:15–11:15 pm
Tainan, Taiwan, Room 335, Kangle Jie No 47 at Fushen Lu, 11:30 pm
Anping, Taiwan, May Jam festival
Anping, Taiwan, May Jam Festival
Taipei, Taiwan, The Living Room, 3F, #8, Nanjing East Road, Section 5, 9 pm, $300NT
Jetlegers wraps up their Taiwan tour at Taipei's premier experimental performance center, supported by Dennis Rea's former Identity Crisis bandmate Andreas Vath from Germany with Dennis and others as Chekov.
Jetlegrs are a versatile and highly original international jazz-rock band specially assembled for a spring 2005 concert tour of Taiwan, including appearances at Tainan’s May Jam festival on April 30 and May 1. Although most of the band members are now based in Seattle, four of the musicians— Axel Schunn, Dave Treanor, Ryan Berg, and Dennis Rea —are current or former residents of Tainan, where they played in such pioneering bands as Identity Crisis, Lemming Dynasty, Charlie Swiggs Band, Lost Weekend, and Misery. The group is rounded out by Seattle drummer Olli Klomp and violinist Karl Scheer and will be joined by special international guests while in Taiwan. The band members’ credits include work with such world-renowned musicians as Cui Jian, Hector Zazou, Han Bennink, Klaus Schulze, Wang Yong, Gruntruck, and members of King Crimson, R.E.M. , Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden.
Jetlegrs perform a strikingly diverse blend of original music spanning modern jazz, progressive rock, funk, world music, and experimental soundscapes. For their Taiwan appearances, the band will reprise some of their ‘classics’ from the early ’90s Tainan music scene, including Clown Hole, The Heimlich Maneuver, and Jaguar Feathers, in addition to hard-hitting tunes by the Seattle avant-rock band Axolotl and by Charlie Swiggs/May Jam founder Axel Schunn.
Dennis Rea
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. He has performed on three continents at such prestigious venues as the WOMAD Festival, Beijing International Jazz Festival, Earshot Jazz Festival, and Seattle Improvised Music Festival. Over the years Dennis has led or been a key contributor to numerous groups including LAND, Stackpole, Axolotl, Savant, Earthstar, The Vagaries, Ink, and Eric Apoe & They. He has performed or recorded with such prominent international creative musicians as Chinese rock megastar Cui Jian, Dutch free jazz legend Han Bennink, acclaimed French composer Hector Zazou, German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze, and American trombone virtuoso Stuart Dempster, as well as members of King Crimson, R.E.M. , Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ministry, and the Sun Ra Arkestra. His activities have spanned film, theater, radio, and modern dance, and he has appeared on nearly two dozen recordings to date.
Between 1989 and 1996 Dennis spent several years living in China and Taiwan, where he gave more than 100 concerts at cultural centers, universities, music conservatories, and clubs, on radio and television, and in sports arenas with the Chinese pop star Zhang Xing. His 1990 solo album for the China Record Company was named one of the year's best releases by China Youth Daily. While abroad he organized three of the earliest concert tours of China by progressive Western bands, including more than 40 concerts in Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Kunming, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as a performance at the China International TV Festival that was viewed by a television audience numbering in the hundreds of millions. He has performed with such influential Chinese musicians as Cui Jian, Wang Yong, Liu Yuan, Liang Heping, He Yong, ADO, and Cobra. In Taiwan, he played dozens of concerts at universities, cultural centers, art galleries, and clubs with such bands as Lost Weekend, the Gang of Formosa, Identity Crisis, the Lemming Dynasty, and Misery. He recently completed a book-length account of his musical adventures in China and Taiwan titled Live at the Forbidden City.
Dennis is among the nominees for Best Guitarist in the 2005 Seattle Weekly Music Awards. His free-jazz group Stackpole was named Northwest Modern Jazz Group of the Year in 2001, and several of his recordings have made critics’ Top 10 lists in such respected publications as Pulse! and Earshot Jazz.
Ryan Berg
Bassist Ryan Berg is a 10-year veteran of the Seattle music scene, having played in such diverse bands as groove-jazz outfit HighRize (a finalist for Best Jazz Group in the 2004 Seattle Weekly Music Awards), avant-rock unit Axolotl, improvisational rock quintet Iron Kim Style, power-pop crew King Size American, free-improv trio State, out-jazz/klezmer band the BJs, and the jazz-meets-spoken-word project Laud, as well as performing in a solo capacity. Although his musical training began with drums and percussion, he has found his home with the electric fretted and fretless bass. He has been cited by the Seattle Weekly for his “strong presence” and is known as a rock-steady bassist unafraid to also venture into improvised music, jazz, acid-jazz, and metal-stomp rock.
Prior to moving to Seattle, Ryan lived for several years in Tainan, Taiwan, where he studied Chinese and played in a number of bands including the original edition of Axolotl, Lemming Dynasty, Dharma Ditch, and the Axel Schunn/Ryan Berg Duo.
Axel Schunn
Guitarist and songwriter Axel Schunn was born in (West) Berlin, Germany in 1959 and obtained a degree in Fine Art from Julius Hebing College in 1986. He began performing music in 1976, playing drums, guitar, and blues harmonica in school bands and singing in school choirs in Germany. In 1990 he moved to Taiwan, where he played original progressive music in mixed expatriate groups such as Axolotl and the Lemming Dynasty (with fellow Jetleggers Dennis Rea and Ryan Berg). Later in the 1990s he formed the Tainan-based rock group the Charlie Swiggs Band, with whom he continues to perform regularly today.
In 1998 Axel founded the annual Tainan May Jam music festival, a multiday event showcasing the rapidly evolving music scene in southern Taiwan; the festival has grown into one of the most notable music events of the year on the island. He has also introduced Taiwanese listeners to a wide range of creative music as host of the radio program Noting Creativity on Southern Taiwan University of Technology's Shining Radio (FM 88.1). An accomplished guitarist and distinctive songwriter, Axel is at home playing all styles of music, and views music as a means of expressing the more positive side of life.
Karl Scheer
Jetleggers violinist Karl Scheer is a multi-instrumentalist specializing in improvised music with a bent sensibility. His earliest musical memory is of hearing the seminal blues artist Leadbelly; a few years later he methodically checked out the entire ethnic music collection at his local library. He was classically trained as a violinist until being fired by his teacher at age nineteen for improvising too much, and he has mostly avoided actually learning any compositions since. He has also studied electronic music with Americole Biasini and loves to twiddle knobs.
In addition to playing odd music—most recently with fellow Jetlegger Dennis Rea in the Seattle-based Hyperbaric Chamber Trio—Mr. Scheer writes trashy crime fiction, produces video shorts and commercials, studies multiple languages, and teaches English to immigrants in the USA.
Olli Klomp
Olli Klomp has been recognized as one of the most versatile and imaginative drummers on the Seattle music scene since the early 1990s, when he held down the drum chair for grunge heroes Gruntruck. Since then he has provided the rhythmic underpinning to such wide-ranging projects as groove-jazz trio Rockin' Teenage Combo, modern pop-rockers Sensation Junkies, avant-rock juggernaut Axolotl, singer/songwriter Eric Apoe & They, Blue Glove, and numerous other projects. He is a fixture on Seattle’s thriving jazz-rock improvisation circuit and has performed with dozens of the city’s leading creative musicians. His first solo CD, Oval League, was released in 2003.