The Oregonian has just published a breaking story highlighting the uncertain future of the Portland Jazz Festival after sponsorship troubles.  Here’s a clip from the article:

The Portland Jazz Festival, strapped for cash after losing its title sponsor in April, plans to stop operating as of Sept. 15. Barring a “miracle” infusion of about $100,000, the February 2009 festival — previously slated to be the exclusive 70th anniversary celebration for seminal jazz label Blue Note — won’t happen. Nor, most likely, will there be any festivals after that.

JazzPDX.org will try to get you up-to-date on future developments regarding the festival.

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

In the April edition of All About Jazz, Managing Editor Laurence Donohue-Green wrote an extensive review of this year’s Portland Jazz Festival.  He covers many of the headliners, including Ornette Coleman, Tim Berne, and the Bad Plus.  He also wrote a section about Portland musicians, but sadly, although it appears in the online version, most of that segment got cut from the print version that you can pick up on the street in New York.

In the local section, he spells a number of Portland musician’s names incorrectly.  Here’s my list of corrections, in the order they appear in the article:

• Warren Rand (not Warn Rand)
• Renato Caranto (not Renato Carranto)
• Stan Bock (not Stan Bick)
• Alan Jones (not Allan Jones)
• Russ Kleiner (not Russ Kleisner)

And my personal favorite: as far as I know, it’s just Jof Lee, not "Jof Lee Johnson" as he’s listed in the article.

Last month, Matt Jorgensen from Seattle’s Origin Arts label came down for the Portland Jazz Festival with his band, +451.  From Origin-Records.com:

The performance featured Matt’s longtime bandmates Mark Taylor, Ryan Burns and Phil Sparks along with special guest Thomas Marriott. They opened the show with two tunes from their new CD, Another Morning.

You can download Mp3s of both sets from their performance from the Origin Arts website.

JazzPDX.org is introducing a new category - “Community Discussion” in an attempt to make the site more interactive. Since the 2008 Portland Jazz Festival just concluded, why not have that be the first topic?

• If you attended any of the events, which did you particularly enjoy and why?
• Did you miss any concerts that you wished you had caught?
• If you’re a musician and you played at the festival, at which events did you enjoy playing?

You don’t have to be a registered user to comment and your e-mail address won’t be used or published, so comment away!

John Nastos will perform at the Old Church on February 21st as part of this year’s Portland Jazz Festival.

The following is from Darrell Grant’s press release about the event, which is hosted by the Leroy Vinnegar Jazz Institute at PSU that he founded:

“Conceived as a professional showcase to highlight the finest young jazz talent to come out of Oregon, LVJI’s series provides Portland jazz listeners the opportunity to hear the future as it arrives.” This year we are pleased to present a young player who is establishing himself as important new voice in Portland jazz–saxophonist and composer John Nastos. John will be joined by a stellar lineup of players that includes drummers Drew Shoals and Alan Jones, bassist Dave Captein and special guest New York pianist Sam Harris.”

The concert starts at 7:30. Advance tickets are $10 for general admission ($8 for students) and are available through the PSU box office (503-725-3307) or any Ticketmaster outlet.