Oregon Music News

The folks at PDX Jazz who bring you the the Portland Jazz Festival are always looking for ways to bring Jazz to the public when it’s not February.

They’ve just announced a monthly series of shows at a new venue for them, Tony Starlight’s Supper Club – Lounge. This is another step for the club in the direction away from kitsch and toward well, Jazz Jazz.

Tony Starlight / Photo by Jon T. Cruz

Don’t worry, Tony fans, you’ll still be able to see him in funny outfits and turning himself into Tom Jones and all manner of lounge lizards. And there will always be Neil Diamond nights and the lovingly presented music of the big band era, complete with crooners and vamps.

But on Saturday, September 18, 8pm, Devin Phillips will usher in the happy marriage of Tony’s and the Portland Jazz Festival. OMN’s publisher Nancy Glass has brought us to the table and PDX Jazz has announced that OMN is exclusive media sponsor for the series.

Read OMN’s interview with Phillips.

One of the most potent and memorable moments of last February’s Portland Jazz Festival was when Phillips was invited to solo during Pharaoah Sanders set.

Phillips waiting for his idol to finish a solo. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman.

Read OMN’s coverage of Phillips playing with Pharaoah Sanders during the 2010 PJF.

The performance at Tony’s will be something very special. He will play John Coltrane’s entire “A Love Supreme.” Not only is Trane’s 80th birthday five days later, but it will commemorate the birth of Phllips’ son, born recently.

“While we were at the hospital during the birthing process,” Phillips is quoted, “I had A Love Supreme played repeatedly. John’s music has and will always have a special place within my own music and family.”

Not sure if the baby will be in the building. Tony may have to discuss the matter with the OLCC.

Dave and Becky

Saturday, October 16, 8pm – Rebecca Kilgore with Dave Frishberg will fill Starlight’s with the American Songbook. One week earlier Kilgore will have been inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame, joining Frishberg who is already enshrined.

Saturday, November 20, 8pm – Jenna Mammina will return to Portland for the first time in four years. The vocalist first appeared at the late great Mt. Hood Jazz Festival in 1998 when PJF Artistic Director had the same gig there.

Royston would like the PJF’s partnership with Mr. Starlight to be “lasting,” noting that, “In the past few years, we’ve established PDX Jazz @ RiverPlace (RiverPlace Hotel); PDX Jazz @ The Art Bar (Portland Center for the Performing Arts); PDX Jazz @ River Fest (S. Waterfront) and other venues where we’ve presented nearly 200 concerts yearly.”

Guess what? They’re calling this “PDX Jazz @ Tony Starlight’s.”

They’re “strongly suggesting” advance reservations for both the performance and dinner / show package.

They also say:

The only way to make reservations is by calling Tony Starlight’s Supper Club – Lounge at (503) 517-8584. Best seats are provided for those reserving the dinner / show package.

The Red Lion Hotel is offering a special weekend promotional rate of $79 on the night-of performance, for jazz fans traveling into the Portland metro area. Details here.

All performances will include a $15 cover charge.

Esperanza Spaulding

Internationally-known Portland export, multi-instrumentalist/singer/composer Esperanza Spalding has been named  by, PDX Jazz, the presenting organization of the  Portland Jazz Festival, as Artistic & Community Ambassador. She’ll officially begin October 14 at the kick-off press conference for the 2011 Festival. Next year’s dates will be Friday, February 18 through Sunday, the 27th.

The PJF release quotes her, “I feel blessed to be able to come back to my home town which has offered me so much inspiration and nourished me and my artistic pursuits. I am looking forward to sharing what I can offer to the Portland arts community.”

Spalding will be doing community outreach around the time of the press conference and will return to perform February 25 at the Newmark Theatre inside the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. She’ll  be participating in the Festival’s, “The Incredible Journey of Jazz,” a week-long middle-school program celebrating Black History Month curated by Spalding’s former Portland State University professor, Darrell Grant.

Read the OMN story on the 2010, “Incredible Journey.”

Also in the release, Festival Artistic Director Bill Royston is quoted as saying, “”Her ongoing roles will be to both consult with us artistically and to assist in providing new directions in future programming, as well as for Esperanza to return to her Portland roots and generate new community outreach opportunities. Her presence in re-connecting with local musicians and educators will serve as a vital component to future planning. At the same time, Esperanza will serve as a PDX Jazz ambassador as she travels worldwide in developing and performing her music.”

Do you ever check out who is running the sound board when you go out to hear music? Thought not. Your inattention is just fine with Shira Otchis, she would rather you didn’t. The proprietor of  She Rock Sound prefers to let you think it’s all magic. What it is, however, is hard work, knowledge of gear…and great ears.

No matter what kind of music you like, you’ve most-likely heard her special style.

She has been Liv Warfield’s personal sound engineer for years, going on the road and tour managing as well as engineering.

During the Portland Jazz Festival she saved the day when The Mingus Big Band had trouble getting out of New York City because of a blizzard, and didn’t arrive at the Newmark Theater until around a half-hour before the gig. That’s a thirteen piece  band.

She was a little reluctant to talk, saying:

“I got into the business  so people wouldn’t know who I was.”

But everybody knows who you are.

I know. Somehow that happened.

by Katlyn ni Donovan

They were wonderful, weren’t they?

How long before the gig did they get there?

Twenty minutes? There was a little bit of a sound check, just enough to get a little dialed in. By the time they got there and in place I think we had twenty minutes before doors. We did as much as we could. I think they held the doors for five minutes. That was many many gigs ago for me…but we did it.

Pretty much did it on the fly, didn’t you?

Yeah.

How do you do that?

With a big band, it’s not that hard. I had enough time to get some sounds dialed in on the drums, make sure the piano was good in the mix, we didn’t have any feedback. Far as the horn section goes, they’re loud, you don’t have to have them very loud in the PA. You’re doing sound reinforcement with them, you’re not amplifying everything all the time. When they hit hard with the horn section with everybody, I would turn their mics down and let the room do its job. When they were doing quieter stuff, I would bring the mics up so they’d be in the mix and they could be heard.

How do I do it? I don’t know how I do it. It’s just natural instinct. I listen to the room, I let the music talk to me and tell me what to do and let the room tell me what to do. I try not to overpower the room. I try to keep it comfortable and enjoyable for the audience. That’s my main goal.

Were you prepared for Justin Faulker, the young drummer being so loud?

No, I wasn’t. I’m not used to Jazz drummers playing so hard. For some of it I actually turned the drum mics off and let the room take care of that too because that was a beautiful sounding room. You don’t need a lot of sound reinforcement, you just need to bring the mics up that need to be heard, to fit in the mix and kind of mix around the band and what they’re doing in the room.

So when he was hitting hard, I would turn the kick drum off and you were hearing the natural kick drum in the room. If I left it on, it would have sounded unnatural. When he was softer and hitting brushes, I’d bring the overheads up…all I really had was two overheads and the kick drum for him. The room was naturally working for itself.

Dave Holland had his own engineer who has worked with him for many years. The beauty of working with someone for a long time is you’re engineering in your head with them. When you travel together you learn what the leader of the band is thinking and how he or she wants his music represented. You do your best to represent them the way they hear their music themselves. So it’s not my interpretation, it’s the band leader’s.

Is that how you are with Liv Warfield?

Yes, with Liv Warfield, with Storm…I’ve been working with Keegan Smith now for about six months. I figured out what they’re looking for in their music and I bring my style to their sound and it works. There’s some music that you don’t understand what they want and you do the best you can, and there’s other music that just clicks…it’s like being a musician in the band. You click and it becomes magical.

How has working with Storm changed over the years?

Storm has many styles that she represents. She has the stuff that she does acoustically,  or with the Balls, stuff that she put together for her play, she has her rock stuff. She’s a rocker. Some of my favorite stuff is from the old days in San Francisco. I didn’t know her then, but I have some of her music…really straight-ahead rock stuff.

Musicians love Shira

And she’s a great Jazz singer.

She’s just a great singer, period. She can take just about any genre and make it work for her…her ability to understand the music and she just has great control over her voice.

You said you add your style to it. What is your style?

My style is that I don’t play an instrument so I listen to the music. I try to bring clarity to the instruments…like a Rock band, for instance. I will drive the guitar heavy because they want the guitar to be the focal point with the voices on top. I guess my style is listening to the music and understanding what it’s trying to say to me and the clarity and keeping the drums in the mix where they need to be for each different style…and for keeping the low-end in the bass guitar a nice clean low-end instead of mushy. Keeping things clean and listenable and not loud and in your face unless it’s supposed to be in your face. The more the audience goes home with ringing in their ears, the happier they are.

What’s coming up?

Not much big. I’m dong the Sandy Concert Series. I also work with Light’s Out’s Productions during the Summer and I do a lot of their festivals. A lot of other stuff. I’m busy.

Storm has some shows at Dante’s this month that I’m working. Three Wednesdays.

What is she doing?

Don’t know. They just called me today. I know it’s going to be different stuff each Wednesday. Different bands each week. They put together the music and about a week or so before, we start talking, input lists and things like that. I’ll go down and decide how I’m going to set the stage up and mic everything and how I’m going to make it work, and do a sound check and then we do a show!

People don’t know these things.

They’re not supposed to. The shows are supposed to be a mystery. They’re supposed to think that when they go to a show and see and hear it, that it’s all magical. It just happens magically. I’m always hoping that I do a good job. We still learn every day. I’m still learning new ways and coming up with new ideas on how to do things. “What if I did this to the kick drum? I’ve never tried that before. That sounds amazing!”

It’s a process. Like life.

And you got started how?

Started when she was 17 now…over 20 years ago. Somebody introduced me to the soundboard and I went “Wowwwwwwwwwwwwww. That’s cool!” I started following sound guys around and asking as many questions as I could, hauling gear and asking questions while they were mixing until I learned how to do it, which was a whole two years later. I told someone, “Hey you need a sound engineer and that’s what I do, you should hire me.”

I feel like I was born to do this.

What was it like the first time you were alone behind the board?

They didn’t know much about their gear and I didn’t know much about their gear and it sounded terrible! There was feedback everywhere…terrible. It was a band I loved called Raw Silk out of Santa Barbara, jazz blues r&b…female vocalist who played harp. The next gig that we did together they actually had me come back. They realized there was a learning curve and next gig this man appeared and said, “Let me give you a hand. I’ve been doing this a while, maybe I could give you some pointers.” He worked with me for four or five shows and then left me on my own and by then I knew a lot more. It became second nature after that. I just started pushing buttons and twisting knobs till I figured out what they did.

I found out a couple of years later that the band actually paid him to teach me. I owe my career to Raw Silk. They got me beyond the “I can’t do this. I don’t know what I’m doing,” period.

They must have seen potential.

I was so grateful. It could have gone the opposite way.

What’s your secret?

The secret is passion. You have to really really want this. I love being a sound engineer.

As it stands now.

Tuesday, as the Stakeholder Advisory Committee of Portland Development Commission’s “Rose Quarter Development Project” was getting ready to meet to settle some important issues on the future of Memorial Coliseum before presenting a report to the Portland City Council this week, two heavy hitters joined the Trail Blazers’/Winterhawks’ “JumpTown” proposal.

The Oregon Music Hall of Fame and the Portland Jazz Festival lent their support to the project, one of three which passed the SAC in February. “Formalized endorsements” was the way the Jazz Festival put it in a media release. In the Blazers’/Winterhawks’ proposal, the Jazz Festival is predicting “about 150 free shows a year under a covered outdoor stage in the Rose Quarter plaza.”

Festival Artistic Director Bill Royston was quoted in the media release as saying, “This project will provide the catalyst to present national jazz artists outside of the Portland Jazz Festival each February, while also offering the opportunity to showcase local talent and allow Portland’s next generation of great artists and musicians to inspire us just as an earlier generation was inspired at clubs on Williams Avenue.”

No other genres of music were represented, leaving out a very large number of music lovers.

Nearby Williams Avenue was the center of the African-American universe in Portland, a vibrant neighborhood with several jazz clubs. The neighborhood was destroyed by “urban renewal” in the 1960’s.

Blazers’/Winterhawks’ “JumpTown”:

Jump Town -- full Rose Quarter

A modernized and more intimate VMC: We will preserve the building’s architectural character, value and history as a veterans’ memorial and multi-purpose sports arena. We will create a more attractive venue by reducing seating capacity to match promoter demand. New club seating, restaurants, regulation ice sheet, and a state-of-the-art scoreboard will help attract new events and ensure a bright future for the Winterhawks, Rose Festival parade and other community users.

But there are two other plans in the running.

Veterans Memorial Arts and Athletics Center (VMAAC):

VMAAC

The VMAAC is a proposed mixed-use redevelopment of the Memorial Coliseum for arts, athletics, and entertainment. It seeks to be a catalyst project that would reinvigorate the Rose Quarter and foster a cultural renaissance in Portland.

Memorial Athletic & Recreation Center (MARC):

MARC

MARC will house the New Memorial Coliseum, an entirely new, 6,500-seat arena, along with more than 200,000 square feet of community recreation, athletic training, and competition facilities in what will be North America’s most comprehensive center for public recreation, sports events, athletics and training.

Mayor Sam Adams chaired the Stakeholders Advisory Committee meeting on Tuesday, moving it along rather briskly. Kevin Brake, PDC’s Senior Project/Program Coordinator, presented a report on how the 32 member committee voted on various concepts for how the Coliseum should be used. Other than predictable improvements to the Veterans’ Memorial, there was strong agreement on spectator sports, fitness and art/music components.

Dissenting against using the building for ballet, theater, symphony or more intimate concerts (including Jazz) was, oddly enough, Greg Phillips, Executive Director of Portland Center Stage, who maintained that there was not enough room in the building for these activities if the seating bowl were left intact, and too expensive to build if the seating bowl were removed.

The fate of the seating bowl was a subject of much discussion. Can they or can’t they eliminate it? If they do, does it change the historical designation of the building or denigrate the Veterans who consider the entire building to be a memorial. Mayor Adams said it would be difficult, but legally possible to eliminate the bowl.

Phillips said it would be impossible to eliminate the bowl without private money, which he didn’t see as forthcoming. He also added that it would be too expensive for the City to do the job on its own.

A straw vote was taken. The results:

• Leave the bowl intact: 4
• Remove the bowl: 6
• Remove part of the bowl: 0
• Let the three proposals go forward without a recommendation: 14

Adams discussed one upcoming source of controversy: the operating agreement with whomever wins. There is disagreement between the City and two of the parties. Adams would not say which ones. He talked tough and will meet with them this week. If there is resolution, the SAC will present their findings to the City Council on Thursday afternoon. Or not.

The answer to the fundamental question of what exactly will be the focus of the building is yet to be determined. Sentiment appears to be for multi-use.

Portlanders love to discuss at great length, and this discussion has been going on since the Rose Quarter opened in 1995.  There is no certainty that the discussion will end quickly, although the Blazers’ operating agreement is coming to an end.

Read OMN’s daily coverage of the Festival.

Opinion

Yes, it was smaller by half, but so is the economy. That we had a Portland Jazz Festival at all is a good thing. That they sold out seven of the eight major events says a lot for Portland. The only one that didn’t sell out was Dave Douglas at the Crystal Ballroom on Sunday night, ending the Festival.

Someone wondered if they had flip-flopped Pharoah Sanders and Douglas, with Sanders at night and Douglas in the afternoon, they might have sold them all out. That’s interesting speculation, but the truth is that there weren’t that many seats left at the Crystal.

Is Jazz Dead? Or has it moved to a new address? — A bogus question

I understand why it was chosen as a topic of discussion for the lead Jazz Conversation and as a sub-theme for the Festival. The question causes Jazz fans to become indignant, to point fingers and grumble, “Of course, it isn’t dead. What a dumb question.”

It is a dumb question and was written to sell books for Stuart Nicholson, the author who posed it. It is a naked straw man, but marketing is marketing. A little controversy sells, bogus or not.

So the straw man turned out to be the burning man of the Festival, set ablaze by the music, local and national and international. But it was still a straw man. It was an exercise designed to have a happy ending. That it did is hard to complain about.

Those Norwegians

Frode Haltli PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

I must admit that I was one of the multitude who said, “Say what?” when they announced that three Norwegian bands were going to be in the Festival. Three? Really? Norwegians? Puzzled looks all over town.

On second thought, this guy Bill Royston has brought in some amazing talent, musicians like Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman, folks we never ever thought we’d get to see in Puddletown. He had the balls to feature ECM throughout an entire Festival! Maybe we should trust him on this? But three bands from Norway?

While they did not provide my top three moments at the Festival, I noted this, “For first-time listeners to In The Country, there may have come a time after a tune or two when it dawned on them, ‘This is what ECM sounds like.’ The landmark label is known for (the teeth-gritting title) “Chamber Jazz.” It has documented many bands like the Norwegians in the Festival this year.

“What’s happy about the sudden realization that you’re hearing ‘ECM’ is that there’s an accompanying thought, ‘I never get to hear this in Portland.’”

On Festival Friday, Tim DuRoche wrote a story on OMN, Norwegian Would: Why Globalism is Good for Jazz in which he said:

…if we limit Jazz’s definition to Crouch et al’s monoculture, conservative, blues-based, swinging model then we do a disservice to the future of the music, and we choke jazz in the same way that Bush/Rove suffocated democracy, one of our other great ‘gifts’ to the world.

About Seim and Haltli, I wrote, “The audience stayed absolutely silent for the next 25 or so minutes as the two were a living example of the old ECM slogan, “The most beautiful sound next to silence.”

Holding the Norwegian’s performances in Norse Hall was cute and quaint and totally appropriate.

Whether or not they took you to the same place you go when you hear Fables of Faubus, or My Favorite Things, or a seductive Brazilian Bossa Nova or the brilliance of Dave Douglas is not the point. They took you somewhere you might not have ever been, and I don’t mean Norway.

That’s what this Festival has always been about.

Images that won’t go away

Pharoah Sanders

Pharoah Sanders at the Newmark. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

• Dancing onstage, including that deep knee bend. We were all hoping he would make it to his feet. He did.

• Faking us out with two melodic pieces at the beginning of his set. The guy next to me grumbled, “He didn’t sound like this in the sixties.” I replied, “Well, maybe he don’t feel that way anymore…anyway COLTRANE sounded like that!”
• Hearing him playing out and knowing that he’s welcome to do any damned thing he likes.
• Wishing there had been a more skillful interviewer at the Jazz Conversation.
• Pharoah and Nancy King sitting together for the first time in fifty years over dinner at Typhoon.
• Devin Phillips, after playing with his idol, telling me he was going to, “Go home and sit on the sofa and think about what I just did.”
• The inevitable wonder if this might be the last time.

Mingus Big Band

Handy solos. PJF photo by Fran Kaufma

• That they could be so passionate and play so hard after having spent so much time and energy trying to get out of New York in a blizzard and arriving too late for a sound check.
• Sound person Shira Otchis of She Rock Sound who dialed them in on the fly.
• Seeing drummer Justin Faulkner for the first time. Yes, he bangs too much, and lacks subtlety at age 18, but am I going to argue with Craig Handy, Sue Mingus, Branford Marsalis and Pharoah Sanders, all of whom have him in their bands? No, I’m not.

Portland Jazz Composer’s Orchestra

Andrew Oliver conducts

• Dan Duval’s amazing composition, Jive Cactus, which followed no one’s rules.

• Sam Howard’s titanic, Mingus-like Courage Like a Mountain, which I didn’t realize was Mingus-like until I heard him talk about Mingus at the Jazz Conversation. I’m not sure he realized it either.

Dave Holland

• Walking the bass and conjuring the spirit of Leroy Vinnegar.
  

Foreground: Kikoski and Grant. L-R Nastos sax, Newton trumpet, Hunter trombone, Moore bass. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

The Jams

• Darrell Grant holding things together, playing beautifully and swinging madly.
• The playing and singing of Amazing Grace for Dick Bogle, who passed away on the eve of the Festival.
• Robert Moore singing the lyrics to Blue Monk.
• Craig Handy bending over and reaching every soul with a lengthy alto solo.
• The young woman from Amsterdam who tried to decorate my hat with a toothpick.
• David Ornette Cherry dragging the room into singing Malinyea…and finally the room responding as it should.
• The Norwegians trying to figure out Witchi-Tai-To.
• Discovering players you’ve never seen anywhere else before, like saxophonist Julian Jacobs.

ETC.

• Hearing David Friesen’s Charles Mingus stories, including the one about the first time he met the man and Mingus kissed him on the cheek and told him how much he loved Friesen’s playing.
• Wondering why there was no place for Gordon Lee, Thara Memory, Nancy King, Glen Moore, Scott Steed, Mel Brown, John Stowell, Dan Balmer, Renato Caranto, Phil Baker, Reggie Houston and many other Portland Jazz virtuosi at this year’s Festival.
• Realizing what a hard-working bunch of folks there are who actually making the Festival function.
• Just being in audiences who love the music and all of us feeling the inspiration at the same time.
• Being just as thrilled by the OMN writers who covered the Festival as I was with the music. Jack Berry, Tim DuRoche, Don Campbell and Angela Allen gave us unprecedented, full daily coverage…previews, reviews, flavor and substance. I’m so proud. I’ve said this before, but quoting David Bromberg, “I always like to have a guitar player in my band who plays better than me.” I love my band.
• And those are just a few of the images that stay with me. My fingers are done wore out.

Dave Douglas (left) at the Crystal. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight  

Never underestimate the sonic possibilities of interwoven brass. And what better close-out for this year’s Portland Jazz Festival than Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy?  

Two of the biggest sounds in American music are the tenor saxophone of Pharoah Sanders and the trumpet of Dave Douglas. We got them back to back. But I don’t think Douglas would mind the suggestion that, in the context of Brass Ecstasy, his sound is frequently gobbled up.  

The “Hot Time” was an interpolation in “Bowie,” the band’s tribute to Lester Bowie, who was both “out there” and a great lover of American vernacular. It was entirely fitting that this selection was the most purely New Orleans in the group’s repertoire.  

A reviewer’s job is generally made easier by the stellar performance of one or two members of a band. But every member of Ecstasy is amazing. It was as if drummer Nasheet Waits was tired of hearing about Justin Faulker, the young whiz that drove the Mingus Big Band and the Pharoah Sanders group. Waits could certainly settle into the happy but rigid pattern of traditional brass band drumming, but he broke away from that to tear things up in a fashion that conformed to no given style.  

And it is amazing to think of a tuba as a pedal point, a drone, as well as an umpah bass line. At one point, Marcus Rojas sustained a note for so long you would think he was circular breathing. No one has cheeks big enough to circular breathe on a tuba.  

Vincent Chancey at the Crystal. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

Trombonist Luis Bonilla is so fast that “slide” doesn’t do as a description of the movement. I’m not sure what does. And French horn is so difficult to play in tune that even Barry Tuckwell articulates deliberately. Not Vincent Chancey. He plays it like a trumpet, one redolent with the gorgeous timbre of French horn.  

The association one has with brass bands is exuberance and there was that in spades. But “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” was so richly mournful that the emotional range of this instrumentation was astonishingly extended.  

A friend who attended the Douglas conversation said the he doesn’t consider himself to be in possession of particularly impressive chops. If that’s true, neither does Raphael Mendez. But he keeps himself in an essentially supporting role with this ensemble, breaking loose to roar on only a few occasions.  

Another song with NOLA coloration was “Mr. Pitiful,” and there was nothing pitiful about it.  

One of Ecstasy’s tunes was dedicated to Don Cherry, who got an immense sound out of a bitsy “pocket” trumpet. It could be considered the tiny acorn for the Big Sound that engulfed the Crystal Ballroom last night. I can see the smile on Cherry’s face.

Pharoah Sanders at the Newmark. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

Count your blessings, name them one by one.  

Hearing great music wonderfully activates the memory. How sloppy this piece would become if I burdened you with all the musical associations the two final concerts of the Portland Jazz Festival, 2010, evoked.  

Pharoah Sanders.  

The big issue, of course, was how long one can sustain the harrowing energy this approach to music entails. What would Coltrane sound like 30 years on?  

Well, the show went off with “Favorite Things,” a fairly thin vehicle for some of the most astonishing improvisation that has ever occurred. Wes Montgomery opted out (I saw him with Coltrane at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco) because he got tired of playing the same two chords, but this was a sweet tribute.  

The powerful Coltrane quotes were there, the independent treatment of the song was there. It was a very promising start.  

L to R Hans Glawischnig. Sanders, Justin Falkner. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

Since none of the selections were called, I’m proud to announce that the next selection was “Say It (Over and Over Again).” Searching for the name of that tune on Rhapsody was a fine reminder of Sanders’ huge output. You can see why that song would become embedded in Sanders’ head. It is a sweet, tranquil line, relief from the tumult of his fundamental inclination.  

Quickly, jazz history must be evoked. Who else but Sanders and Sonny Rollins is still standing from the Golden Age? James Moody, Clark Terry, Hank Jones, and Lee Konitz. But who else? You’ll think of a few but the point is made and there seemed to be some recognition of this at the Newmark Sunday afternoon.  

George Page was a colleague of mine in commercial television during the 70s. He had a jazz show on KBOO and billed himself as “The Master Blaster.” George is elsewhere but I’m confident that he would step back when it comes to Blasting if Pharoah was in the room.  

Has the Blast lasted? It has but you had to give it some time. Sanders, these days, is clearly pacing himself. He exploded when and where it served his purposes.  

The cunning of the man was revealed in his choice of associates. In addition to pianist William Henderson, Sanders plucked bassist Hans Glawischnig and drummer Justin Faulkner from the Mingus Big Band and had a local (via New Orleans) Devin Phillips share tenor duties. Much has been made of Faulkner, who is 18 years old, and rightfully so; he could kick a band with one hand and, when he got going, appeared to have been seized by a more or less benign epileptic fit.  

No one, prior to the Golden Age and beyond, has teased so many strange sounds out of a tenor saxophone than the Pharoah. Echo effects, warbles, ululations and splintered multi-sonics abounded. Others have gotten percussive sounds from the instrument by just fingering the pads (not blowing) but his are really loud. I kept looking at the bass player to see how he was doing that but he wasn’t (at that moment) doing anything.  

Bassist Glawischnig (pronouncing that name isn’t as hard as standing in for Charlie Mingus) is a great lunger. His very clean figures fairly jump out at you and, on a very long arco solo, he played bass like a fiddle. Henderson contributed to the band’s big bottom with his left hand while his right, given an opening, was all fluid.  

And, when there was a pause and he struck a few very bright notes, joy arrived. It was party time, “African High Life.”  

Phillips waiting for his idol to finish a solo. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman.

Before that, Phillips was sorely tested. He had been invited to introduce Sanders, his idol. He brought his horn but I’m not sure that he expected to play. But he did, and had to follow a Sanders’ solo that was a vintage head shaker. Tentative at first, he dug in. Asked later whether he had been worried, he told a friend that he wasn’t thinking but that he was now going home to sit down and brood about the event.  

Read the OMN Sanders/Phillips backstory.  

In conversation, the most reticent of men, Sanders was frisky as an old colt on stage yesterday. He pranced and danced, then conducted a community sing that would have made Pete Seeger envious. He had the sold-out crowd saving the children and loving the mothers and fathers before going tribal with huge African shouts.  

I entered the Newmark sick with the flu, left feeling damn fine.  

Oregon Music News is happy to be a Supporting Sponsor of the Portland Jazz Festival.

Pharoah Sanders: Backstage Backstory with Devin Phillips and Pharoah’s dinner with Nancy King

Phillips waiting for his idol to finish a solo. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman.

Phillips introduced Pharoah Sanders from the Newmark Theater stage on Sunday. He was a little nervous as he explained that Sanders had been his idol since he was in his early teens. Phillips later played with Sanders’ band during their set.  

That much was evident to everyone in the audience.  

Here’s what happened backstage, according to Festival Artistic Director Bill Royston:  

When Phillips arrived backstage before the concert, he was introduced to Sanders. Sanders took one look at Phillips and asked if he were a horn player. How Sanders knew that is one of those “Pharoah” things we may never understand…but he just knew it.  

Phillips, somewhat astonished, said yes. Sanders asked, “Is your horn here?” No, but he could get it. “Go get it,” said Sanders. Luckily, Phillips lives downtown and broke several Olympic sprinting records on route. When he got back to the theatre, Sanders said, “Just do what I tell you.”  

After the introduction, Sanders played a couple of tunes. He would walk off stage when his solos were over. One time he did not walk out, Phillips did. Backstage he just said, “Get out there,” to Phillips. Out Phillips went…and wailed.  

At one point, the two were on stage together but they never played at the same time. Sanders was asked why after the concert. He replied, “Coltrane and Dolphy never played together.”  

In the Art Bar/lobby after the concert, Phillips, still obviously on a cloud told me, “I’m going home and sit on my sofa and think about what I just did.”  

Shortly afterward, Sanders and Nancy King, along with Sanders’ pianist William Henderson, singer Kelley Shannon, Festival Ground Operations Director Yvonne Lerch and several others took the back room for dinner at Typhoon on Broadway.  

Sanders and King had been reunited after fifty years. They had been good friends in California in the 1960s. Sanders was a huge presence at the table even though, true to previous descriptions, he was a man of few words. Nancy, on other hand, is a woman of many words, most of them very entertaining.  

They sat next to each other. She rubbed his hand. He said it was hurting. From signing autographs? Everyone laughed. Sanders ordered some crab fried rice and steamed broccoli, in case you’re interested in what a Jazz titan and a legendary artist whose work will last forever likes for dinner.  

It was a very warm setting.  Later, Lerch said she thought it was a moment perhaps never to be repeated.  

At the Crystal — Dave Douglas closes the Festival

Since this was the only show the Festival did not sell out (although there were very few empty seats), this was the one that many Portland musicians showed up for. Dan Duval, Shoehorn and his wife, glass artist Karumi Conley, Dan Gaynor, Chance Hayden and Shelly Rudolph, and Kelley Shannon. Justin Faulkner, the young drummer who wowed everyone playing in both the Mingus Big Band and with Pharoah Sanders, was also spotted.  

The folks who did a lot of the hard work of making the Festival happen…like Yvonne Lerch, for instance…stood in the rear of the Crystal happy with how smoothly things had gone.

The Conversation — The Jazz Conversation

As reported earlier none of the Mingus Big Band was able to make the 4pm Portland Jazz Festival’s Jazz Conversation. Upon arriving at the Art Bar at PCPA, it was obvious that another kind of panel was going to be required. Since the topic was Mingus, I called David Friesen and Sam Howard who were kind enough to come down on an hour’s notice. Also joining was Paul DeBarros from the Seattle Times/Down Beat (who had been in the panel just previous) and Festival Administrative Director Don Lucoff.

One of the best Mingus stories was told by Friesen who recounted his first encounter with Mingus. Friesen had just played a gig in New York and was backstage. All of a sudden he felt a large hand on his shoulder. He turned around and was met by a kiss on the cheek from Charles Mingus who told Friesen how much he loved his playing that night. This led to a long musical relationship, although of course, both being bassists, they never actually played together.

Another interesting fact that came out of the conversation was from Sam Howard who, as it turned out, is highly influenced by Mingus and said that many of the younger Portland musicians (he named Ben Darwish and Andrew Oliver) are also.

There is a recording of the conversation. At some point you will be able to hear it. There are rights issues to be dealt with.

The Hang — Schmoozing at the Brasserie

Free drinks and food always make members of the media appear at whatever function you’re planning. Remember that. At the VIP schmoozefest at the Brasserie (calling it VIP is also an attraction), the OMN braintrust, such as it is, was at one table. That’s me, Publisher Nancy Glass, Managing Editor Chris Young, and Webmaster John Nastos. I dunno why Webmasters are always listed last, John. I guess it’s like drummers. When John is playing sax, he gets to be listed first in band rosters.

We were joined by Music Millennium’s Terry Currier and bassist Sam Howard at times.

Allegro’s Forrest Faubion stopped by to say hi as did drummer/writer (now an OMN contributor) Tim DuRoche. He was laughingly asking why the Jazz Festival always asks him to host Jazz Conversations with musicians for whom English is not a first language.

There was a toast to Festival Artistic Director Bill Royston, whose mug appears on the label of Rogue’s Jazz Guy Ale. Students from drummer Alan Jones’ Academy were on the bandstand with the teacher.

Naturally, we all overstayed the appointed end time. That’s what you get for offering media free drinks.

The Music — Mingus Big Band

Craig Handy solos with Mingus Big Band. PJF Photo by Fran Kaufman

Thirteen of the fourteen members were able to get out of New York, but they got to PCPA too late for a sound check. If you didn’t know what they had gone through since early in the morning, 3500 miles away, you would have never known it.

Armed with the inspiring, titanic music of Charles Mingus to start with, and in a band carrying the name and responsibility of the man, the band lived up to all of it.

The musicians: Trumpets: Alex Sipiagin, Brandon Lee. Saxophones: Craig Handy, Mark Gross (alto), Seamus Blake, Scott Robinson (tenor), Jason Marshall (bari). Trombones: Joe Fiedler, Andy Hunter, Earl McIntyre. Drums: Justin Faulkner. Bass: Hans Glawischnig. Piano: David Kikoski

Justin Falkner 2009

Not to downplay the tremendous virtuosity of the players, especially Dave Kikoski, Craig Handy, Andy Hunter and Semus Blake, but drummer, 18 year-old Philadelphia native, Justin Faulkner stole the hearts of the audience. If you’re lucky enough to have tickets to see Pharoah Sanders, you’ll have another chance to see him again. He’ll be in Pharoah’s band.

Don Lucoff compared him to Tony Williams at the same age, and he’s exactly right. He’s fast and furious, loud and strong when he solos. The audience discovered him during his solo on  GG Line. All of that strength and talent doesn’t intrude when the ensemble is playing or during others’ solos.

Lucoff also said that Branford Marsalis got Faulkner out of high school. He is Jeff “Tain” Watts’ replacement in Marsalis’ drum chair. He also added that he thought Falkner was the “story of the Festival” so far.

More on Faulkner in the section on the Jam below.

The band played totally written pieces like a movement from Epitaph as well as familiar (and very welcomed) works like Fables of Faubus (a memorable Handy solo), Sweet Sucker Dance (Seamus Blake with a fine tenor sax solo), E’s Flat, Ah’s Flat Too (pianist David Kikoski soloed…one of those masters who every musician knows) and their non-encore encore Song With Orange.

Handy solos. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

Handy, who handled the between-tunes duty, announced that they could be coy and leave the stage or “Would you like to hear the encore now?” You can guess the answer. They had an arrangement of Orange by former Mingus band member, the late John Stubblefield, who also played in this band for many years. It rollicked, it rolled, it was everything you’d ever want in a Jazz tune, including an audience call-and-response at the end, during which the whole band stood.

Other outstanding solos came from trombonist Andy Hunter who does the most unexpected things with the trombone. Turns out Hunter is old friends with Portland trumpeter Farnell Newton who was playing downstairs at the Art Bar. They both showed up later at the Jam.

Mr. Mingus

The Mingus Big Band as well as the other two Mingus bands are as important as any other bands playing Jazz music. We often hear people talk about “keeping Jazz alive,” a cringe-worthy phrase with a musty reek to it. What’s important is to keep the vast spirit and inspiring music of Charles Mingus available. That its transformative power endures is not in question. Hearing it played as it was meant to be heard is what counts.

The Mingus Big Band counts.

The Music — In the Country

In the Country, Friday night. PJF Photo by Fran Kaufman

Norse Hall is quaint. The room in which In the Country performed is lined with Scandinavian flags. The trio was obviously intense, very committed and serious. It revolves around keyboardist Morten Qvenild who has done a lot of listening to Keith Jarrett. This is not a criticism. We should have more Jarrett-influenced pianists and I’m guessing that you’ll find them in Europe.

The difference here is that Qvenild adds a laptop and other keyboard-triggered electronics to his acoustic pianistics. Oh, he does not squeal when he plays.

For first-time listeners to ITC, there may have come a time after a tune or two when it dawned on them, “This is what ECM sounds like.” The landmark label is known for (the teeth-gritting title) “Chamber Jazz.” It has documented many bands like the Norwegians in the Festival this year.

What’s happy about the sudden realization that you’re hearing “ECM” is that there’s an accompanying thought, “I never get to hear this in Portland.”

Now you have, and have two more chances to hear more.

Read Tim DuRoche’s OMN story on the Norwegians at the Festival.

The Hang

As In the Country was finishing up in the “hall” part of Norse Hall, Darrell Grant was getting the bar area ready for the Jazz Jam. Drummer Reinhard Melz arrived with a couple extra cymbals, tuned up the drums and complained that he would have to miss Pharoah Sanders on Sunday because he had a gig with his dad, Bobby Torres.

Others in the starting band included saxophonist John Nastos. David Ornette Cherry was setting up his electronics. There was talk that the Mingus Big Band (some of them) were going to show up.

There was much scrambling for seats in the room and just as much anticipation. Read the OMN preview.

After midnight, the music and the hang seemed to combine into one big party.

The Music AND the Hang — The Jazz Jam

Foreground: Kikoski and Grant. L-R Nastos sax, Newton trumpet, Hunter trombone, Moore bass. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

Before the music began, several members of the Mingus Big Band arrived, including Andy Hunter, Justin Faulkner, David Kikoski and Craig Handy. Remember, they woke up to a blizzard in New York, scurried around finding flights, flying all day, playing the gig without a sound check, some not having even gone to their hotel…and then showing up at the jam to play even more. Gotta love it.

Musicians poured in…Dan Duval, Farnell Newton and many more. After the opening tune which featured a sharp solo by John Nastos, Grant announced that they were going to play Amazing Grace in honor of Dick Bogle who had passed away on Thursday.

Read a remembrance.

Glen Moore played bass, Andy Hunter joined in as well as drummer Kenny Reed, trumpeter/vocalist Robert Moore, guitarist Dan Duval, Farnell Newton, Kikoski and vocalist Lindsey Stormo. Newton took the first,

Darrell Grant, Craig Handy. PJF Photo by Fran Kaufman

and very emotional solo. Darrell Grant led the room in singing to close the tune. No doubt Bogle touched the lives of many of those in the room, young and old. He would have loved it.

Grant called up the Mingus Big Band members who burned through a tune. Handy had not come in yet, so the fire was led by Kikoski, Faulkner and Hunter. Later in the evening, Handy came up and peeled the paint off the walls with his alto solo. Some of the musicians were literally jumping up and down as he rocked.

Many others came and went, including Andrew Oliver. Ben Darwish, Kelley Shannon and Shoehorn were in the room, but did not play. Darwish is expected to play at tonight’s jam.

The alcohol flowed. Musicians worked the room. The Mingus Big Band concert was the soul-satisfying highlight of the day but the Jam was more fun than should be allowed. And there’s another TWO days of the festival to go.

by Tim DuRoche

Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli

The 2010 Alaska Airlines Portland Jazz Festival is focusing the spotlight (a bright shining Nordic light, as it were) on the work of a handful of Norwegian Jazz musicians. As a New England-born Unitarian, raised largely in Minneapolis (amongst a largely Lutheran, Scandinavian-descended populace) that seems like a Garrison-Keilloresque set-up at first glance. But if you follow jazz punditry at all, you’ll know the lineup is inspired partly by Stuart Nicholson’s beatification of Scandinavian jazz, Is Jazz Dead? (Or Has it Moved to a New Address); but more directly by Jazz Fest director Bill Royston’s recent face-to-face encounters with the work of artists like Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli, Christian Wallumrød Ensemble and In The Country.

Despite coining the hideous word “glocalisation,” Nicholson’s book inspires a lot of questions about the fate and state of jazz: Is JAZZ at this point still an American form? Why do we continue to devalue and disavow our greatest contribution to the arts? What can we learn about our own values from this global re-introduction to jazz? As Royston noted at OMN here recently, “We wrap ourselves around this music and we say it’s our own, but we don’t support it. We expect the music will survive in the marketplace like any other art form.” It’s a bitch.

Jazz has always had a tough time at the table in this country— from early reactions as a moral panic (like “the sound of whips in the Sousa-filled night” said poet Ed Dorn) to its use as a cultural weapon during the Cold War to its place now as a rich global form, that some think is “diluting” the music.

Christian Wallumrod

At the height of the Cold War, we loved standing up jazz (along with abstract expressionism) as a shining examples of Freedom, Individuality in the face of the Red Menace. Sadly, long before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, European jazz and improvisational artists far surpassed American jazz in the realm of freedom. For decades, some of the most interesting developments in jazz and improvised music have been coming out of Europe. Not just Norway, but Holland, England, France, Germany, Belgium and so forth. We love experiencing American pop music forms delivered back to as as fresh borrowed idioms—think about Algerian, Bhangra, or Urdu hip-hop, rock music reinvigorated by Fela or King Sunny, Israeli singer-songwriters, or dance-hall and dub. Why shouldn’t the same occur with jazz?

“Jazz,” said the renegade historian J.A. Rogers, “is a marvel of paradox: too fundamentally human, at least as modern humanity goes, to be typically racial, too international to be characteristically national, too much abroad in the world to have a special home.

The tradition of this music, “the essence of the music, is change itself,” reminds pianist Muhal Richard Abrams. Unlike some artforms, it truly can be all things to all people: Chicago, New Orleans, West Coast dixieland, small-group swing, big band, bebop, hard bop, cool, Third Stream, New Thing, soul jazz, boogaloo, jazz-rock, fusion, free-jazz, non-idiomatic improvisation, avant-garde jazz, new Dutch Swing, freebop, nu jazz, neocon, acid jazz, smooth jazz, chill jazz, vocal jazz, vintage popular song, grindhouse, etc. Royston noted that the Norwegians are doing much more interesting work than much of what you’ll hear in Manhattan—much of the most interesting work happening is happening very far from Manhattan, what was once the “jazz capital of the world:” including bastard Brooklyn, the Bay Area, the suburbs of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Chicago, Minneapolis and so forth. And the reason is the artists have rejected the hegemony of the Stanley Crouch-Wynton dogma and accepted that jazz is now a global form.

In the country.

Musicians aren’t concerned with categories for the most part. As makers we continue to view music horizontally, while critics, historians and the industry insist on vertical categories. That’s nothing new. There are some folks who think that the nature of the universe is permanence; there are some who will argue that surely the nature of the universe is innovation and change. The former like their permanence of the variety–easy to snap their fingers to; the latter crave the outer limits and adventure of the shape of jazz to come. It’s always been that way—from Parmenides and Heraclitus to Charlie Parker and Peanuts Hucko, Frode Haltli and beyond.

It’s easy to forget that jazz is about confluence and it has been since it’s birth way back when. This most wonderful four-letter word, this mash-up circumstance of pan-Caribbean/African rhythm and European pomp, has always been about multiple perspectives and rich, multilayered storytelling. To build on Ornette’s phrase, this is our music. . . all of it: from ragtime to no time. Nothing illustrates this idea of jazz as an expansive continuum, a lively exchange between past and future, multiple traditions and unfettered creativity, more than acknowledging diverse voices and influences and wide-ranging idiomatic threads (austere post-classical , Sufi ritual music, Gagaku court music, Indonesian gamelan, Balkan, Nordic folk, electronica, etc.).

Jazz for decades has returned to formulae that works—the young man in suit playing Lee Morganish harbop archetype, time-trapped crooner accessorizing vintage pop—because, like the tyranny of kitsch, they can fit into consumer-simple bins and boxes. But how many times can we allow the ghosts of hard bop and mainstream jazz-past to haunt us.

Much of the composer-oriented, texture rich work of the Norwegians fits the jazz-criteria of Gary Giddins’ and Scott DeVeaux’s recent history of the music. They begin with empathy, active listening, but they don’t allow themselves (like so many of their American counterparts schooled in Jazz Studies) to be cowed by its classical status, the anxiety of influence, or the ironic taffy-pull of historicism and cleverly radical recombination. Tradition, reminds Gustav Mahler, “is the passing on of fire and not the adoration of ashes.”

But if we limit Jazz’s definition to Crouch et al’s monoculture, conservative, blues-based, swinging model then we do a disservice to the future of the music, and we choke jazz in the same way that Bush/Rove suffocated democracy, one of our other great ‘gifts’ to the world.

As an exercise let’s use the gift and luxury of our visiting Norwegian colleagues and the totality of this year’s Portland Jazz Festival to investigate a return to traditional values. No. Not what you’re thinking. For a second let’s embrace the traditional American value of “cultural pluralism” (for some background read up on your Alain Locke and the Harlem Renaissance and his inspirations in pragmatist American philosophers like William James and John Dewey). Cultural pluralism, a value as American as jazz, democracy, and baseball is about high-fiving the uniqueness of different styles and folkways coexisting within an open, democratic society. Seen through that lens it’s easy to see the contributions of our Norwegian brethren as another ingredient in the stone-soup—or in the gospel according to Marsalis, seasoning to this delicious gumbo. While it may sound unlike your daddy’s Brubeck, it embodies all the values that make this music great: risk, innovation, freedom, recombinant energy and emotion, and volleys of fierce commitment and desire.

It snowed again in New York last night. A lot. Enough so that Portland Jazz Festival Artistic Director Bill Royston had to scramble like mad in cooperation with the agent for the Mingus Big Band to get them to Portland for tonight’s concert. They even got a bus and picked up the musicians all over New York City and delivered them to two airports.

They caught a number of different flights, coming through Phoenix, Salt Lake and other points West.

Handy was supposed to be a part of one of the Jazz Conversations with yours truly at 4pm. After some scrambling on my part, the panel ended up being about Mingus and included David Friesen and Sam Howard along with Festival Administrative Director Don Lucoff.

Royston said this afternoon that 13 of the 14 members of the Mingus Big Band will be onstage at PCPA, Newmark Theater at 7:30pm.

Read OMN’s preview.

At Thursday night's concert. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

If you were hoping for a red-hot Latina performance at the Portland Jazz Festival’s opener Thursday, you didn’t get it.

You got more. You got different. You got Luciana Souza for 90-plus minutes of pure-voiced singing that earned her four Grammy nominations and a reputation for making poetry of jazz and music of poetry.

The Brazilian-born Souza, educated at Boston’s Berklee School of Music and New England Conservatory of Music, is far more than chanteuse. She is songwriter, poet, scat genius, and brilliantly understated interpreter of Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell and the bossa nova guys including her father Walter Santos and fellow Brazilian Antonio Carlos Jobim. Her range reaches to James Taylor and Brian Wilson though she stuck more to South American roots for this gig. Her samba rhythms and phrasing are unmistakably Brazilian despite her 25 years of absorbing American music.

Who needs a drummer with her around? She brushed a hand-held drum pad, fingered the tambourine and played the triangle while she sang in Portuguese or English. Still, the vibe was more minimalist than flashy.

The Trio. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

Virtuoso guitarist Larry Koonse, who collaborated on her recent CD, “Tide,” accompanied her along with Toronto-born bassist David Piltch, with whom Souza had never before worked. Piltch, who sided with Blood, Sweat and Tears in his teenage days and such singers as k.d. Lang and Madeleine Peyroux later, is a dynamic player. OK. He was excellent and a helluva showboat, but maybe Souza could have taken a chance on one of Portland’s top-notch bassists.

After one rehearsal, the three sounded as if they’d known each others’ riffs and idiosyncrasies for a lifetime, or at least for a few shows or studio sessions. Nothing more was needed but better acoustics at the Hilton, but then again, what’s new?

Among the night’s sizzlers was Souza’s rendition of “Down to You” from Joni Mitchell’s 1974 “Court and Spark” album, a huge influence on Souza as a young musician. (Souza, by the way, is married to music producer Larry Klein, Mitchell’s former husband.) The two women have a lyric and poetic connection you can’t miss, though Souza’s mellow mezzo doesn’t sear like Mitchell’s soprano.

Other favorites were the lively “Pato,” a snappy tune about a duck sung in Portuguese, and nods to love songs and standards, including “The Very Thought of You” and Ella-influenced “All Too Soon.” Paul Simon’s “Amulet” (with no real words) and a story/tune about a 104-year-old blind Brazilian man who died of a heart attack as he smelled a beautiful woman coming closer, added to the generally light-hearted mix.

To end the show, Souza sang (in English) “The Waters of March,” a Jobim masterpiece filled with gorgeous words. If you missed everything before this one, the evening would have been worth it.

Read the OMN preview which includes a sound clip of “The Waters of March” from her album The New Bossa Nova.

Oregon Music News is happy to be a Supporting Sponsor of the 2010 Portland Jazz Festival.

There is so much music out there that one feels like a poorly performing hunter/gatherer cast into Zupans. So thank you Portland Jazz Festival and Oregon Music News for directing my attention back to Pharaoh Sanders. Damn, yes! I remember now: “The Creator has a Master Plan”.

Actually, I sought the assignment because in the late 70’s I went to hear Sanders with Jim Pepper at the Northwest Service Center in Portland. Pepper, an old friend of the Pharoah, sat impassively through the concert. At its conclusion, he put his hands on his knees and simply said: “I’ve got to get back to New York. You’ve got to play on that level.” (This piece gets spiked unless I note that Ferrell Sanders was Egypted by Sun Ra.)

That was some band. Am pretty sure the personnel included Sanders, Idris Muhammad on drums, John Hicks, piano, and Walker Booker, bass. As I recall, there was a respectable amount of applause but mainly it was gaping mouths.

An excellent woman who works where I do said she doesn’t much like to listen to sounds like this on record but leaps at the opportunity to hear it live (was ecstatic about the Portland Jazz Festival’s recent presentation of Ornette Coleman).

So this is your cup of tea or it isn’t. Sanders was playing with John Coltrane on “Live in Seattle” and more that one acquaintance of mine considers that to be one the most astonishing experiences of their lives. Pharoah chatter on the Internet includes a rebuttal to Whitney Balliett’s putdown, that it’s noise, not music. Call it what you want, was the rejoinder, if it’s noise it’s noise of surpassing power and frequent beauty.

Sanders, who is verging on 70 years-of-age, was, and apparently still is, one of the deep mystics of improvised music. While it takes some serious woodshedding to become a conduit of the Spirit, at some point one can become a vessel. (Albert Ayler held that Coltrane was the Father, Sanders the Son, and, modestly, he was the Holy Ghost.) Spirit, in this incarnation, seems close to pure aural energy.

After a recent session of listening to Sanders (and, yes, the records are important but it’s harder to get yourself up for the demanding experience on record than it is when you’re there) I was mystified by a refrain which is constantly repeated. It sometimes on three cuts of a single record and in every album it almost always turns up. What accounts for this mantra or incantation? It almost seems as if everything flows from this one musical figure.

The Wikipedia entry on Sanders features an assertion by Ornette Coleman that Pharoah is the greatest living tenor player. Well, my friends who are not friends of this music will say, “consider the source.” I’m perfectly willing to do that.

So, in addition to the constantly iterated figure described above, what else can you expect to hear Sunday, February 28, at 3 p.m. in the Newmark Theater? Sanders, who says he never rehearses a band, may be as interested as you are. Of an earlier concert, he declared: “it’s all going to be new to me.”

Watch Pharoah walking toward you in an abandoned tunnel:

Oregon Music News is happy to be a Supporting Sponsor of the 2010 Portland Jazz Festival.

The Music

PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

Andrew Oliver conducts Weds night. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

The clubs were alive Wednesday night and at The Old Church,  the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble played the first major concert at the Portland Jazz Festival.

Read the OMN preview, with a sound clip from an earlier concert.

The Ensemble is directed by Andrew Oliver (piano) and Gus Slayton (sax). The band:  Saxophones/Mary-Sue Tobin, Willie Matheis, Micke Bruggerman. Trombones/Lars Campbel, Dave Bryan, Doug Peebles. Trumpets/Randy Meuller, Brooks Bennett, Tree Palmedo. Bill Athens, bass. Kyle Williams, guitar. Kevin Van Geem, drums. Guests: Galen Clark, composer/piano, Sam Howard, composer/bass and Lindsey Stormo, vocals.

The Ensemble played nine compositions, mostly premieres. One happy result of being around for three years now, is that they dip into previously performed pieces, as they did with Sam Howard’s memorable, titanic Courage Like a Mountain. Howard joined in on acoustic bass and Lindsey Stormo sang.

Dan Duval

All of the compositions and most of the playing was outstanding. Composers included: Reed Wallsmith (who also conducted his piece), Ken Ollis, Galen Clark, Eric Allen, SamHoward, Kyle Williams, Keven Van Geem and Andrew Oliver.

The most affecting piece of the concert was Dan Duval’s Jive Cactus. The guitarist/composer was in the audience but did not perform. Duval’s music is strikingly distinctive, in the emerging Indie-Jazz cannon, or any Jazz tradition. It communicates on a very primal level. It speaks with a human voice, even though it is complex musically. There is something in it that expresses the human condition in the current era…the state of mind, the hopes and fears.

There are no big band cliche’s or school figures or homages. Duval’s music cuts to the bone. He is a singular voice who should be listened to.

The Hang

PJF’s Bill Royston and Don Lucoff were in the audience, both beaming about the fact that both the Luciana Souza and Mingus Big Band shows were sold out. During intermission, Royston praised PJCE saying how much tighter they were than when they started. PJF was instrumental (so to speak) in helping PJCE get started and putting them in the Old Church.

One of the composers said one of the words you can’t say on TV during a conversation, caught himself when he realized he was in an (Old) church. I told him, “Let’s just call it, The Old Venue.”

After the gig, some of them said they were heading over to the Brasserie to see Darrell Grant in a rare club date.

Good idea.

The Music

Darrell Grant and Tom Wakeling a the Bra Wednesday night. PJF photo by Fran Kaufman

It isn’t often when pianist/composer Darrell Grant plays in a club. At the Brasserie Montmartre it was SRO to see him with saxophonist Devin Phillips, drummer Alan Jones and bassist Tom Wakeling…truly an all-star lineup. No premieres of original compositions here. This was an old-fashioned blowing session, with each player taking solos on a familiar tune (Four, for instance).

The energy was very high and the band was clearly enjoying lifting each other to greater expression, masters of their instruments…just plain wailing.

The Bra audiences can sometimes be inattentive, to say the least. That’s understandable to a degree, they’re spending a lot of money to have dinner and be with people they’re either spending a lot money on or having money spent on them.

On Wednesday night, all the attention was riveted on the stage.

Many times, Darrell Grant performs his own music in concert situations. We look forward to those occasions. What we’ve been missing in the last few years, is Darrell Grant in a club,  just improvising…being a Jazz musician in the way he was before he became the great educational natural resource he is now.

His work with The Leroy Vinnegar Jazz Institute, has helped produce a generation of young musicians who have come into their own in the past couple of years. That’s a legacy that will live on for decades.

But Jazz fans have been missing the fresh blast of cool when Grant just plays as he did at the Bra.

The quartet at the Brasserie is a preview of the two nights of Festival Jazz Jams coming Friday and Saturday night at Midnight at the Norse Hall. Read the OMN preview.

Phillips Wedsneday night. PJF Photo by Fran Kaufman

Near the end of the night, one of those moments, the kind that fans have always looked forward to throughout the history of jazz, happened on the bandstand. Grant called up French saxophonist François Théberge to sit in. He is in town recording with Alan Jones and Nancy King. After some discussion Grant announced that they were, “Going to make something up.”

Théberge took the first solo. Good playing, not spectacular, but fine chops, although it kind of petered out. Phillips stepped up. Sensing the company, he had been doing some serious blowing all night, so he was primed. He played a long series of half-notes and then exploded, leaving Théberge’s solo in a puddle on the floor of the bandstand.

It’s an  old Jazz tradition. They use to call it “cutting.” They used to have “cutting contests.” I am sincerely hoping that’s what the Jazz Jams this weekend turn into. The listener wins, no matter who gets cut.

The Hang

Royston was in the club. So was Bobby Torres. Royston was all happy about having his face on the new Rogue Jazz Guy Ale, brewed for the Festival. Maybe he’ll turn out to be the next Colonel Sanders.

Nancy King was at a table with Dan Gaynor, Yvonne Lerch, Théberge, Kelley Shannon and others who came to pay their due to King the Queen. Her absence from the Festival is a damned shame. She’s the best singer in Oregon and one of the best in the world. There should be a place for her.

As Phillips was leaving I walked up to him and pointed to the wall near the back of the room. The management have kept the results of a decades old unsuccessful attempt to break through the wall into a bank. It’s exposed brick, several layers of which are missing.

I asked Phillips if that was the result of Théberge being blown off the bandstand. He just laughed.

A quick visit to Someday Lounge to check in on this week’s Dookie Jam was a funky way to end the night.

Oregon Music News is happy to be a Supporting Sponsor of the 2010 Portland Jazz Festival.

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