Dennis Rea & Terrane featuring Sailyk Ommun, Abakan, Russia 2019

Dennis Rea & Terrane featuring Albert Kuvezin, Krasnoyarsk Jazz Festival, Russia 2019

Dennis Rea Time-Lapse Trio, Shapeshifter Lab, Brooklyn 8.9.18

Moraine live at Ustuu Huree Festival, Tuva 7.24.15

Michael Moorcock, Nik Turner & Flame Tree at North American Space Ritual 2019, Austin, Texas


Moraine: "Skein," live at Chrome Hearts, Los Angeles


Dennis Rea with Cactus Truck, Achinsk, Russia 7.26.15


Identity Crisis with Cui Jian, Beijing, April 1991


Moraine: "Uncle Tang's Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," live at Chrome Hearts, Los Angeles

Dennis Rea: Giant Steppes livestream presentation
Friday 4.2, 7 p.m. PST, Facebook Live, free
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Dennis Rea's adventurous guitar playing blends jazz, rock, experimental, and world music into a unique vocabulary, marked by haunting lyricism, enigmatic textures, agile improvisation, and the raw dynamism of rock.

Over the years Dennis has led or been a key contributor to such innovative groups as Moraine, LAND, Iron Kim Style, Zhongyu, Stackpole, Savant, Earthstar, and Identity Crisis. Notable among his collaborators are French composer Hector Zazou, Dutch jazz legend Han Bennink, trombone avatar Stuart Dempster, godfather of Chinese rock Cui Jian, Hawkwind cofounder Nik Turner, fabled speculative-fiction author Michael Moorcock, master Tuvan throat singer Albert Kuvezin, and (in a production role) elektronische musik progenitor Klaus Schulze, as well as members of King Crimson, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Santana, Ministry, and the Sun Ra Arkestra. Based in Seattle, he has performed throughout the U.S. and in China, Russia, Tuva, Germany, the UK, Taiwan, and Mexico, at such events as the MuzEnergo Tour of Russia, NEARfest, WOMAD, Beijing International Jazz Festival, Baja Prog, Ustuu Huree Festival, Voice of Nomads Festival, Sonic Rock Solstice, FestivAlterNativo, Bumbershoot, Columbia Gorge Amphitheater, North American Space Ritual 2019, Earshot Jazz Festival, Seattle Art Museum, and Seattle Asian Art Museum. 

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. His activities have spanned film, theater, radio, and modern dance, and he has appeared on more than 40 recordings to date on labels including MoonJune, Sky, RVNG Intl., Light in the Attic, First World, Extreme, CZ, Cleopatra, and Materiali Sonori. He is also an accomplished author whose book Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan was reissued in an updated edition by Blue Ear Books in 2015; his latest title, Tuva and Busted, was published as a free eBook in 2021. He is a co-organizer of the annual Seaprog festival and the periodic Zero-G concert series, and for more than a decade co-organized the long-running Seattle Improvised Music Festival.  

His current projects include internationally renowned avant-rock band Moraine, Dennis Rea & Terrane, Jon Davis's Zhongyu, processed thumb piano trio Tempered Steel, Flame Tree (with Hawkwind founder Nik Turner), and Ben McAllister's Guitar Cult,