Sometimes talking to a musician is a totally different experience from hearing the music that comes from that musician. Sometimes it’s a perfect mesh. Musical personality and verbal personality can be very different. Which is why the annual series of Jazz Conversations at the Portland Jazz Festival is such a treat.
All of this year’s are interesting, but I think everyone is interested in hearing what Pharoah Sanders has to say….about anything. But be prepared, the Festival Artistic Director said in an OMN story, “Pharoah is a man of few words, as you may know. He’s much more rooted and down to earth than most people think and he’s a very soft-spoken, one-to-two-sentence guy.”
Let’s hope the Oregonian’s Barry Johnson has some luck getting Sanders to expound when it’s his turn at conversing. The fallback position for interviewers who are facing “a man of few words” in a live interview situation is to take the lead and try to be as entertaining as possible…dead air is dead air whether it’s on TV, radio or in front a live audience.
Other Jazz Conversations (all at the Art Bar and all free) include:
- Friday, 2/26 at 4pm: Yours truly with Craig Handy of the Mingus Big Band…which will include a variation on the contest question which won an OMN reader tickets to Patrick Lamb last week.
- Friday, 2/26 at 5pm: Tim DuRoche with Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli
- Friday 2/26 at 6pm: Matt Fleeger with Christian Wallumrod
- Saturday 2/27 at 12pm Steven Cantor with Dave Holland
- Saturday 2/27 at 6:30pm Barry Jonson with Pharoah Sanders
- Sunday 2/28 at 12pm Lloyd Peterson with Dave Douglas
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[...] interview on Sunday (day of the Brass Ecstasy performance) at noon. Full list of interviews below. Jazz Conversations (all at the Art Bar [map] and all free) [...]