Oregon Music News

Ron Steen at Clyde's Prime Rib (photo by John Nastos)

In the Portland jazz scene, the name Ron Steen is practically synonymous with “Jam Session.”  Steen is the leader of the famous Monday-night jam at Produce Row, a Sunday-night jam at Clyde’s Prime Rib, and now a new Thursday-night jam session at the recently-opened Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen.  He’s been leading sessions like this for decades and shows no signs relinquishing his role as King of the Jam Session in Portland any time soon.

Early life

Steen grew up in North Portland, in a house just across the street from the Cotton Club on Vancouver Avenue.  Although not as famous as New York City’s Cotton Club, Portland’s version was still a big name in the Northwest, attracting acts like Cab Calloway and Sammy Davis Jr.  As a teenager, Steen would go to the session on Sunday afternoons, sitting in with other local musicians, learning the tunes, and learning the etiquette of being on the bandstand.

At the time, faces like Bobby Bradford, Cleve Williams, and Evan Porter were the established heavy-hitters on the scene, but young players were showing up at the sessions as well.  “Guys like Mel Brown were playing there at the time,” explains Steen.  “He was like the first really really good drummer locally that I heard.  Mel was playing extremely well.  He was about five or six years older than me, but he had the chops that he has right now back when he was 21 or 22.  Phenomenal.  I had never seen anything like that.”

Steen explains that venues and jam sessions were always opening and closing just as they are today.  But, he says, “back then, getting into places wasn’t as hard if you’re underage as it is now.”

The first session

Ron Steen at Clyde's (photo by John Nastos)

It didn’t take long before Steen was playing all over the city, even leading his own gigs.  Despite not having had a drum lesson and having to borrow others’ drums for gigs, Steen managed to become an accomplished enough musician to get the call to become a bandleader at age 19.  The call came from Chet’s, a club in downtown Portland, owned by the only black club owner in Portland.  “The club owner asked if I could get a band together.  As a matter of fact, I think it was just piano and drums.  There was a lot of that back then.  If you had a trio back in those days, it wouldn’t be piano, bass, and drums.  It might be piano, sax, and drums.  At that time, basses really weren’t amplified…you’d get more bang for your buck with piano, sax, and drums.”

Steen ended up hiring Lester MacFarlane to play the club’s organ in a duo with the drums.  MacFarlane would kick bass on the organ, giving the group a full sound despite just being a duet.  “This cat was really into James Brown,” says Steen about MacFarlane.  “We would put some funk in there because that was really happening back in the day.”

Often, the duo would be joined by other musicians who would drop by to sit in.  “I was letting people sit in — that was my frame of reference,” explained Steen, since he had grown up playing in the jam sessions around town.  Unfortunately, having people sit in on the gig quickly backfired.

“The other club owners downtown…reported us to the union.  They said it was unfair competition because these guys were paying for three or four pieces and Chet was only paying for two but he was getting an effect because I was letting people sit in, not even realizing that it was technically illegal.  The union threatened to picket Chet’s.”  Of course, other clubs had musicians sitting in as well but were not getting hassled, leading Steen to believe that the union action was politically driven by the white downtown club owners who were always working to try to oust the only black club owner.  “What it really was was just racism.  The club owners downtown all got together — they were trying to do whatever they could to get [Chet] out of there.  They were just using that as an excuse.”

Steen eventually lost the gig to Danny Wilson, a keyboard player he had hired for the gig.  Wilson, being an older player on the scene, convinced Chet that he would be better for the gig and for the club.  “Next thing I know, it was his gig and I was out of there,” laughs Steen.  “It was a learning experience — I was 19.”

More sessions, more players

After the gig at Chet’s, Steen’s career was off and running.  He played with countless musicians, both as a sideman and a leader, including national artists like Joe Henderson and Woody Shaw, as well as local luminaries such as Jim Pepper and Nancy King.  He’s almost always had at least one jam session running and his sessions are always the go-to hang for players around town.

Over the years, a number of great players have come through the sessions.  Perhaps the best known is Chris Botti, who now tours internationally as a bandleader and has spent time on the road as a sideman with Sting.  He first sat in with Steen on a gig down in Corvallis, where Botti’s aunt and uncle asked if their nephew could sit in.  Steen agreed to let the youngster sit in, not too excited about the prospects of the player from his appearance.  A couple of choruses into It’s You or No One, though, and “he could already play.  I was just shocked.  There was such a disconnect between the way he looked and what I thought he was going to sound like.”

When Botti moved to Portland, Ron immediately started offering him gigs and connecting him with other musicians — just the result every player hopes for when he or she sits in at the sessions.  Of course, only the best get that sort of treatment from Steen, who always has high standards.

“I want people to do their best,” says Steen.  “I look at the person sitting in as a guest.  I don’t approach it like the old sessions where they try to make people sound bad, calling tunes in weird keys, playing real fast.”  However, the likelihood that a musician sitting in at one of the sessions will get a call from Steen for a gig is pretty low unless he or she is a complete professional.

Tom Grant and Phil Baker at Clyde's (photo by John Nastos)

Pink Martini bassist Phil Baker was one of the young players to come through Steen’s jam sessions and get a call afterward for a gig.  “Phil was a thoroughly complete musician at [21] — I kid you not…he was ridiculous,” says Steen.

More recently, Steen has been a mentor to Kate Davis, a young bass player who ended up playing a weekly gig at Wilf’s with Steen’s band for two years while she was still in high school.  Davis does not take the lessons that she learned on that bandstand lightly.  When asked about what she learned while playing with Ron, Davis responded “Ron taught me bandstand etiquette, what not to play, and most importantly, how to treat not only band-mates, but the audience. I try to remember everything I learned from that experience, and I hope to keep them a part of my playing and performing for the rest of my life.”

Since graduating from high school, Davis has moved to Manhattan School of Music, where she studies with some of New York’s top players.  Whenever she returns, though, you can count on her being on the bandstand with Ron.

Besides getting great players to sit in, Steen consistently hires some of Portland’s finest rhythm section players — guys who know the jazz songbook backwards and forwards.  “You’re not going to call a tune that they don’t know.  Phil Goldberg — you’re not going to stump him.  You’re not going to stump George Mitchell, Steve Christofferson, Tony Pacini.  The bass players — you’re not going to stump Phil Baker, Dennis Caiazza, Dave Captein, Scott Steed or Ed Bennett.  The rhythm section, yeah, we’re ready — what do you guys got?” he challenges.

Today’s sessions

Today, you can find Steen leading three weekly jam sessions around town.  At his longest-running session at Produce Row, there’s always a packed house on Monday nights.  Since jazz musicians don’t often have gigs on Monday nights, great local players like Dave Captein and Dick Berk are often found sitting in, even if they aren’t in the house band.  Also, ex-Portlanders always know to find their way back to Produce Row when they are in town for Ron Steen’s sessions.  John Wiitala or Dan Faehnle may walk through the door at any moment.

Tom Grant, Phil Baker, Dan Faehnle (photo by John Nastos)

The session at Clyde’s Prime Rib, although it hasn’t been going on as long, is now a strong session as well.  Although Clyde’s is a blues club during the week, the Sunday-night sessions are generally straight-ahead jazz, more often than not with a vocalist fronting the group and getting the crowd engaged.  Clyde’s has developed an extremely loyal following on Sunday nights — people who show up nearly every week of the year to cheer on musicians.

And, just recently, Steen announced that he’ll be hosting an “invitational” jam session at the new NE Portland venue Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen on Fremont on Thursday nights.  This month, Phil Goldberg will hold down the piano chair for that session, with Dennis Caiazza and Ed Bennett trading weeks on bass duty there.  With that lineup and Steen calling the shots, it’s sure to become another great session.

To keep up with all of Ron Steen’s gigs around town, visit his website where he posts all of the jam sessions, including the lineups for the house rhythm sections.