Trumpeter Christian Scott will be at the Goodfoot Lounge with his band this Thursday, September 27th. Opening will be the Eugene-based funk band Eleven Eyes. Cover is $15. More info at thegoodfoot.com

David Friesen story via YouTube



Fantastic video of bassist David Friesen from Tom D’Antoni’s old ArtBeat archives. You can visit D’Antoni’s YouTube channel as well as his blog to find more interesting jazz/blues material. Also, be sure to check out his radio show at 10 PM on Saturday’s on KMHD.

The lineup for the 2008 Portland Jazz Festival has been announced, including artists like Joshua Redman, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and Dave Douglas. More info can be found at the official website and a recent Oregonian article.

View the article on the Oregonian website.

In the last few years, jazz education in Portland has been booming, producing more and more students looking to go out and hear live music (and if they’re not, they should be). The OLCC has imposed strict regulations on clubs, with seemingly arbitrary rules about when minors can and can’t be in restaurants. Apparently, some places that are safe for minors at 9:00 are not safe post-9:30.

If minors are looking for jazz, one of the safest bets is Jimmy Mak’s, which has live music every night except Sunday. Unlike at the old location, minors can go any night of the week, as long as they are out by 9:30.
Another good bet is Jax, which hosts one of the only minor-friendly jam sessions in town. If you don’t want to hit the Wednesday jam session at Jax, minors can go to the Monday night session that Clackamas Community College hosts in their music building. Tom Wakeling hosts that jam with other CCC faculty like Charlie Doggett, Eli Reisman, and Clay Giberson.
On the weekends, head on over to LV’s Uptown, where Darrell Grant has made an point to keep the music available to minors. At the beginning, the stage was placed so that good seating for minors was pretty limited, but with the new stage location, there’s plenty of spots to get a good view of the music.
A few nights a week, Wilf’s at Union Station has jazz that minors can check out from a few parts of the venue. Wilf’s is a classy venue with pricey meals, but it usually doesn’t have a cover. It’s also very tri-met accessible, which is sometimes helpful for minors.

Other good bets are weekend events, such as farmers markets, art shows, library events, etc. that usually are not serving alcohol and are therefore available to minors.

Know of other good spots for minors to check out jazz? Let us know.

The site is almost three months old and going strong. Recently there has been a great response from artists sending gig announcements for the calendar. Look for more of these to start appearing in the next week or so. Artists: if you want your announcement to appear on the front page in the blog section, send me some more information about the gig, as well as an image if you can.

Some statistics:

Among the last 500 visitors to the site:
100 are from Portland
46 from Vancouver, WA
34 from Beaverton
23 from Seattle
14 from Wilsonville
10 from Tigard
6 from Hood River
3 from Gresham
1 from Hillsboro
1 from Salem

Of course, not all visitors’ browsers report a city, so these aren’t hard statistics, but they do paint a rough picture of the visitor demographics. JazzPDX.org’s response: there should be more jazz (and jazz fans) in Gresham and Hillsboro. Does anyone know of anything going on in either of these two suburbs?

Weekly gigs:

I’d like to put together a comprehensive list of all of the jazz gigs that occur each week, such as Mel Brown on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at Jimmy Mak’s, Neil Masson on the weekends at the Benson Hotel, Ron Steen’s jam sessions, etc. Please get in touch or leave a comment on this post if you have ideas for this listing.

This October, more than 20 of Portland’s best jazz and blues artists will come together with the Oregon Symphony for a tribute to beloved American artist Ray Charles, as Portland’s own Tribute to Ray Charles band makes its first appearance with a symphony orchestra.

The group features arrangements by Dave Metzger (Lion King) and Charles Floyd with instrumentalists such as Patrick Lamb, Thara Memory, Reggie Houston, and more. Also featured are vocalists Curtis Salgado, Linda Hornbuckle, Duffy Bishop, Andy Stokes, Lee Garrett (co-writer with Stevie Wonder), and Olivia Warfield.

You can find more info at raycharlestribute.com patricklamb.com and orsymphony.org

photo by Norm Eder

Join vocalist Shelly Rudolph and pianist Ramsey Embick on Wednesdays at 23 Hoyt from 9 to 11 PM.