Cellist and all-around artist seeks beauty in improv

When Paul Rucker calls himself a cellist, bassist, composer, band leader and visual artist who plays pop, rock, jazz and classical music, he's not padding his résumé. He's just being honest.

In July, this brilliant polymath added yet another tag to his name: community arts liaison for the Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs.

"It's been an interesting year," reflects the 39-year-old musician in a mellow, measured voice reminiscent of his primary instrument, the cello. "The weird thing is that I'm playing more than I've ever played in my life."

Rucker's "Project 12: Finale" Wednesday at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center (4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., Seattle) is a great place to catch up on some of his recent projects. Two of his art pieces are on display: "Catalyst," a touch screen showing money burning in different forms; and "Eleven Conversations," an interactive sound sculpture that can be interrupted by a wave of the viewer's hand. "Busker," a 40-minute film of Rucker playing cello in unconventional situations, also premieres; and Rucker performs solo, on cello and with his quintet.

The room opens at 7 p.m., the film is at 7:15 p.m., the concert at 8 p.m. ($5-$15 sliding scale; 206-789-1939).

A restless and relentlessly curious fellow, Rucker was raised in the small town of Anderson, S.C., and started playing bass in elementary-school orchestra before moving on to marching band ("I carried an electric bass") and jazz band ("Maynard Ferguson, Chuck Mangione ... not a lot of jazz standards"). At 13, he was recruited for the community orchestra's production of "Man of La Mancha."

At the University of South Carolina in Columbia, he studied jazz and commercial music, played in the school's excellent symphony and discovered free-improvised jazz. Between two stints as a student of jazz and commercial music — one for two years, another for three (though he did not graduate) — Rucker played in symphonies, rock bands and musicals. Then, at 27, on a whim, he bought a cello.

In 1998, he decided to move to Seattle. "I needed a place that was open to new sounds and that was also affordable," he says. Shortly thereafter, he started making visual art to enhance his music.

Rucker has never taken a cello lesson, but you wouldn't guess it from his rich, gorgeous sound. He also has a huge inventory of extended techniques — using the sound box as percussion, bowing below the bridge, etc. — though he takes a skeptical view of too much free-improv.

"People did such amazingly strange things in the '70s," he says, "but most of the things I've heard in my years of playing have been rehash. There are players who avoid beauty, avoid a melody. One of the most beautiful things is to put a beautiful melody over chaos."

You can hear that mix on Rucker's excellent, self-produced album, "History of an Apology" (Jackson Street Records), which features an all-star Seattle cast including Bill Frisell, Julian Priester, Bill Horist, Hans Teuber and Flora Magill. Rucker builds his music in textural layers, mixing two, three or more time signatures in a method he calls polymetronomic marking.

"Think of the three hands on a clock," he says. "They meet at 12 different places — noon, 1:05:05, etc. — but they're all moving at different speeds."

Live, Rucker's quintet — with Horist (guitar), Isaac Marshal (flutes, thumb piano), Neil Gitkind (trombone) and Eric Anderson (drums) — also mixes chaos with passages of sublime beauty, playing without charts, strictly off the cuff.

In the summer of 2006, Rucker received the Cadillac of artist grants, a Rockefeller residency in Bellagio, Italy. Working there with the poet Jayne Cortez, he resolved to create a visual art exhibit and compact disc once a month in 2007. Though the CDs have been postponed (too expensive), this year Rucker has had his visual art on view for 331 days and has played more than 40 concerts.

That's why Wednesday's concert is called "Finale."

"It was a lot of fun," he says. "But I'm exhausted."

You can see a video of Rucker playing the cello and talking about his music on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubf3HlDnEwQ.

Paul de Barros: 206-464-3247 or pdebarros@seattletimes.com