It seems obvious - a collector of rare glass instruments and international performer on the glass armonica would naturally want to live in Tacoma, just steps away from the Museum of Glass. But for Dennis James, it didn't work out the way he'd intended.
James is a kind of musical Renaissance man, playing seven unusual instruments professionally (including theater organ) and collecting hundreds more. Yet in the decade he's lived here, he's done only a handful of Tacoma performances – and none on glass. Which is why, after upcoming Seattle and Olympia gigs, James has decided to pack his moving trucks and leave town, just after an upcoming Seattle gig.
It's understandable, in a way. James plays some of the most esoteric instruments in the world: the glass armonica (a horizontal set of glass bowls stroked on the rims), the cristal baschet and seraphim (which are similar), the electronic theramin and ondes martenot, Don Buchla electro-accoustic instruments such as the Thunder and Lightning, and the theater organ. It's perhaps only the latter that rings a bell locally: James was for 10 years the organist for the silent film series at Seattle's Paramount, appears regularly at Olympia's Washington Center and played a film in the Rialto in 2008.