From this week’s press release from The Cave:

Wednesday June 25th: NANCY KING INVITATIONAL

This week Nancy invites the great and venerable Tom Wakeling on bass and Jed Wilson on piano. Jed is a young man who has been living in Boston and New York for the last few years and has recently moved back to Portland. He’s very, very good at playing the piano. He’s very, very good at accompanying singers. These are two quite different things and Jed is brilliant at both.  Tom Wakeling of course is a rock…who makes great lines and hears everything.

Note: Next week Nancy goes to Paris to sing some concerts but “subbing” for her will be Rebecca Kilgore and Dave Frishberg!

Thursday June 26th: ALAN JONES PRESENTS…

Andrew Oliver on piano, Sam Howard on bass and Alan Jones on drums.  This trio is designed to explore some new places a “piano trio” might go in the hands of two young guys with vision and energy and one medium guy who’s eager to see the outcome.

Friday June 27th: ART RESNICK TRIO

Art Resnick is a master piano player and prolific composer who after a long hiatus from the Portland jazz scene will make a triumphant return by performing at The Cave with a new trio featuring Dan Schulte on bass, Jonas Oglesby on drums.

Art has been the sought-after pianist of choice for some of the greatest jazz musicians of our times. He has toured and recorded with James Moody, Freddie Hubbard, Nat Adderly, Benny Golson, Bobby Shew, Gary Bartz and Charles McPherson…and that’s only naming a few!

Saturday June 28th: GREG GOEBEL QUARTET

Greg has been recognized in Down Beat magazine with an award for Outstanding Original Composition.  He has consistently been given top honors at music festivals including Best Overall College Performer and three time Best Overall College Pianist at the Reno International Jazz Festival. Greg has recorded and toured with renowned bassist David Friesen, and is a current member of the David Friesen Trio. Greg also performes with Portland quintet, PDXV, which just released their second CD.  He has played with and continues to work with notable musicians such as Alan Jones, Bob Magnusson, Dick Oatts, John Handy, Gary Hobbs, Peter Epstein, Jay Thomas, John Stowell, Rebecca Kilgore, John Gross, Ron Steen and Terrell Stafford.  Joining Greg will be Tim Wilcox tenor, Dave Captein bass and Charlie Doggett drums.

The Cave is located at 636 SW Jackson underneath the Green Onion restaurant

Vocalist Retta Christie is releasing her newest CD this Sunday at the Old Church.  The CD features an all-star trio with saxophonist/clarinetist David Evans and piano-legend Dave Frishberg.  Tim DuRoche at Willamette Week has the following to say about Retta:

Retta Christie has a singular knack for that curious, vastly entertaining form of Americana that swings in the recesses between jazz and country. Think Jimmie Rodgers, dustbowl prophets like Cowboy Bob Wills or Floyd Tillman, or the flatland plains poetry of Hoagy Carmichael, and you’re in the neighborhood. Fans of Irving Berlin saloon songs will be swinging till the cows come home.

The show starts at 6:30 PM - tickets are $10 in advance through brownpapertickets.com or $15 at the door.

From Ben Darwish’s e-mail list this week:

 

Someday Lounge

Friday June 20th

5-7pm  FREE  21+

125 NW 5th Ave (and Davis)

This is our LAST happy hour at Someday Lounge.  Food and drinks are

delicious and very cheap.

 

Homegrown Live

Saturday June 21st

2-3pm  89.1FM

Live radio performance.

 

Heathman Hotel

Saturday June 21st

8pm-12am  FREE  ALL AGES

1001 SW Broadway at Salmon

Great space.  Grand piano!

 

Someday Lounge

Sunday June 22th

7:30-11pm  FREE  21+

125 NW 5th Ave (and Davis)

A progressive jam session hosted by my Trio.

 

Jimmy Maks

Tuesday June 24th

6:30-7:30pm  $3  ALL AGES

221 NW 10th Ave (and Everett)

Come early to hear us, stay for the Mel Brown Septet!

 

From this week’s press release from The Cave:

Wednesday June 18th: NANCY KING INVITATIONAL

This week Nancy invites the swift, wry, hoping, and still young pianist Dan Gaynor. Dan is what in astronomy would be called “an orbit”.

Thursday June 19th: ALAN JONES PRESENTS…

his new Quartet of Portland all-stars Randy Porter, Rob Davis and Tom Wakeling. Collectively known as The Cavemen This group will be performing new original music of Alan’s along with not too common and very interesting re-workings from the modern jazz literature.

Best-known for his leadership of the Alan Jones Sextet, which for many listeners defines the essence of Portland jazz with its adventurous, hard-swinging original music, grounded in both jazz tradition and the rugged individualism of the Northwest.

Friday June 20th: EZRA WEISS - NEW JAZZ QUARTET

Jazz composer/pianist Ezra Weiss has returned to Portland from New York City, where he recorded several CD’s and led bands at major venues.  Now, Weiss has formed a new quartet, which will debut at the Cave on June 20th.  The quartet includes drummer Alan Jones, bassist Dave Speranza, and saxophonist Renato Caranto. 

Ezra Weiss’s piano playing evinces a distinctive expressiveness that is doubly impressive coming from a jazz musician who’s still in his twenties.  He also possesses composing and arranging skills of an unusually high order. He has earned the coveted ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award no less than three times and has received rave notices from the press. Weiss’s new album, Get Happy, further evidences his wide-ranging abilities on a program of original songs and specially picked material from the Great American Songbook that, taken as a conceptual whole, concerns the pursuit of happiness. The album is available at ezraweiss.com and cdbaby.com.

Saturday June 21st: HAILEY NISWANGER QUARTET and the JEFF CUMPSTON “GOING AWAY TO ZIMBABWE” PARTY

Yes, Jeff Cumpston, one of the great drummers and musical educators in Portland is packing up his family and moving to Zimbabwe!!!  Clearly Jeff is also a bold and fearless adventurer, which you have to be if you’re going to be any kind of jazz drummer…so we shouldn’t be too surprised by his outrageous move. Jeff has been an important teacher and inspiration to many students who have gone on to develop their own careers in music. This band is made of 3 of these young musicians who have benefited from Jeff Cumpston’s vision and wisdom and are obviously placing themselves as the next generation of deeply talented and highly motivated musicians.

Hailey Niswanger is 18 years old, has a real live time feel and plays the alto saxophone with the fearlessness of a true improviser. She has already made quite a scene in the jazz world performing with the 2007 and 2008 Gibson/Baldwin GRAMMY Jazz Ensemble in Hollywood, California, receiving outstanding soloist awards from many festivals around the US and being selected for the MENC 2007 All Northwest Jazz Band. It looks like Hailey will go away to college next fall, possibly to Berklee on the full scholarship they’ve offered her, so come see her play and get her autograph while it might still be relatively easy. Hailey will be joined by fellow friend female phenom, Kate Davis on bass, her high school band director Jeff Cumpston on drums and the also very young and talented Sam Hirsh on piano.

This Saturday (6/14), ex-Portlander Esperanza Spalding returns to our city to celebrate the release of her new album, Esperanza.  The CD release is being presented by the Portland Jazz Festival and the Jazz Society of Oregon.

To find out more about Esperanza and her new CD, you can check these sources:

• Tom D’Antoni’s LivePDX Music Blog
• The Oregonian from June 8th (OregonLive.com is not currently working…)
• PDXJazz.com

Saturday, June 14th

Winningstad Theatre

8 PM

Buy Tickets

This week’s press release for The Cave:

Wednesday June 11th: NANCY KING INVITATIONAL

This week Nancy invites the clever, intricate, swinging, and still young pianist Dan Gaynor. Dan is also what in baseball would be called “in the hot box”.

Thursday June 12th: ALAN JONES PRESENTS…

If you asked randomly around the world, “who is the greatest musician living in Portland, OR”, it’s quite possible, likely even, that most of the responses would be…Dave Frishberg. It’s worth taking a minute to check out some of the things he’s done over a 40-year career http://www.davefrishberg.net/long_bio.php. He played with Ben Webster! He played with Gene Krupa! He writes and sings hilariously intelligent songs that are very famous…but those songs are for another night. On this night he’ll be playing version of breathtaking piano with Warren Rand. Warren has “Revered Master” status in Portland. He has the biggest, fattest sound you can get on an alto saxophone, has played since it’s inception with the Mel Brown sextet/septet and the Alan Jones Sextet.  He’s played blues for years with Robert Cray and Albert King. Dave Speranza will be playing bass. Dave is playing very, very well, just look at the company he’s keeping. Alan Jones will play drums.

Friday June 13th: ANDREW OLIVER SEXTET

Andrew is a very motivated, prolific and exceptional piano player and composer. One of the leaders in the great movement of young talented musicians in Portland, he brings to his work the experiences of living, studying and playing for 3 years in New Orleans, touring in unusual and interesting places like Poland, Bulgaria and Africa, the ability to speak French and play cello, trumpet and drums.  This is an opportunity to hear a young creative musician on his way up.  Joining Andrew will be Dan Duval, guitar and composition; Mary Sue Tobin, soprano, alto saxophone and clarinet; Willie Matheis, tenor saxophone; Eric Gruber, bass and Kevin Van Geem, drums

Saturday June 14th: DAVID FRIESEN TRIO

David Friesen bass, Randy Porter piano, Alan Jones drums have been playing together for many years, traveled all over the world, recorded 3 internationally acclaimed CD’s, have a virtually telepathic rapport with each other and have never had a rehearsal.

Monday June 16th: INGRID JENSEN QUARTET

Special Note: Next week INGRID JENSEN will dart into Portland to do some work with David Monette on a new trumpet and while she’s here play a rare, secret gig at the cave on MONDAY JUNE 16th with Randy Porter, Dave Speranza and Alan Jones + special guests.  I know, we don’t usually have music on Mondays, but sometimes you have to make exceptions.  This will be a party!

The Cave is located at:

636 SW Jackson St (at the corner of Broadway in the PSU neighborhood).