Jason Seed

Biography
Press

Composer/Guitarist Jason Seed’s music has been performed by the Chicago Symphony, The Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, Present Music, The Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra (Poland), The Icelandic Symphony’s Vijhalmsson Quartet, The Prometheus Trio, Accessible Contemporary Music and others.

In Jazz Seed has worked as a guitarist with Bill Frisell, Scott Amendola, Jessica Lurie, Trey Gunn, Dan Trudell and many others, as well as fronting his own groups which have toured across the US and twice to Europe. Seed’s music has been heard in Poland, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic and has sold well in Sweden and Norway. Seed’s genre-be-damned group, The Elixir Ensemble, has put out three records to great reviews and won the 2008 Independent Music Awards for the record Where the Corners Meet.

Seed’s music has been played on WXRT, WFMT, NPR, WPR, PRI and countless internet radio stations and podcasts as far reaching as Brazil and Ukraine.

In cinema Seed’s music has been featured in 2 scores for independent films and will be used for a live performance to a silent film at Chicago’s Chopin Theatre in April 2011.

Seed studied jazz with David Baker at Indiana University and with William Russo in Chicago, and classical music with Ileana Perez-Velasquez and Douglas Lofstrom as well as pursuing a lifelong love of folk music and rock music on his own.

Awards

2008 Independent Music Awards

Tags

Jason Seed guitar

"...one listen to his music and any one label begins to sound tiny, incapable of encompassing the sonic space Seed inhabits. " -- Dave Luhrssen A&E Editor Milwaukee Shepherd- Express

"Watching virtuoso Jason Seed is such a treat. He has great facility in many different genres, and every show is a pleasant journey as he weaves a new unique musical tapestry every time he plays." -- (Isthmus, Madison WI)

"....members of the Chicago Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony and Present Music and they are going to make sure that their music is driven home inside your skull for all eternity. Is it jazz? Rock? Vaudeville? Music Hall? The liner notes call this ongoing experiment rockedixieofunkinjazzpsyclassicadelicango. HCTF album of the year. So far." -- Here Comes the Flood (Netherlands)

"...one listen to his music and any one label begins to sound tiny, incapable of encompassing the sonic space Seed inhabits. " -- Dave Luhrssen A&E Editor Milwaukee Shepherd- Express

"'Genre-bending' is a term that gets thrown around by critics nearly as much as 'original,' yet Jason Seed seems to have a firm grip on both with his latest album 'Delusion.'...Seed has digested his influences and assimilated them into his own style."-- Todd Lazarski Milwaukee Shepherd-Express

"The best music is often the hardest to categorize. Jason Seed...whose edgy music harkens back in form to the ensemble playing of the earliest jazz bands rather than the dull, string-of-solos format favored by many contemporary players. Some of the music echoes New Orleans with its confidently funky stride. Other tracks recall the tricky changes of progressive rock, a great lost King Crimson track here, an Eastern European violin power thrust there.." - Dave Luhrssen Milwaukee Shepherd Express.

"If you were to put Frank Zappa, Stephen Bishop, and John Coltrane on stage together with a string section, you might end up with something like the Jason Seed.. I almost hate to use the word unique, as it has been so overused (and misused), but this outfit is nonetheless one that brings that word to mind. In fact, I feel unqualified to comment on the music other than to say this is one of the more unusual recordings to cross our threshold. What we have here is sophisticated and polished, yet with an edge that is just raw enough to saw through your complacency and open your attention to a sound that is at the same time both new and comfortably familiar." nightflying - little rock

"Jason Seed, reminiscent at times of John Scofield, surveys the territory between electric rock and straight-ahead jazz." -- Don Heckman, L.A. Times (In reference to Jasons touring with the Jessica Lurie Ensemble)

"Jason Seed is actively using his own voice and space. The skillful development and execution of his original material along with his interpretation of standards and current artists indicates the breadth of the musical palette at his command." - - Todd Robinson, President of Luna Records (Indianapolis)

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