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The Rifftides staff is off to Portland, Oregon for the first four days of the ten-day PDX Jazz Festival. I have been recruited to moderate a Saturday panel discussion about Frank Sinatra’s influence on jazz musicians. In my primary role as observer, I’m looking forward to hearing a diverse cast that includes newcomers like the French singer Cyrille Aimée and the young saxophonist Hailey Niswanger, as well as oldcomers like alto sax giants Lou Donaldson, 88, and Lee Konitz, 87.
In between: Hal Galper, Nicholas Payton, Marc Cary, Ron Carter, Taylor Eigsti, Vijay Iyer, Sheila
Jordan, Benny Green, Bill Charlap, Stanley Jordan, Jackie Ryan, Julian Lage, Tain Watts and Freda Payne, to single out a few. Whew. For complete details, see the festival website. Blogging from Portland will be as often as time and endurance allow. Stay tuned. A visit to Portlandia is never less than interesting because the community spirit is——well, see the picture on your right.
Hello Doug,
Continuing to read your journal and enjoying your writing.
Do you know this?
The link in Roberta Arnold’s message is to a full-length film tracking Sinatra, Quincy Jones and a studio band full of jazz stars as they make an album. It’s both entertaining and full of insights into Sinatra’s musical and professional personas.
Wow – I just read through the list of performers and it’s a knockout including not only the “stars” like Charlap and Jordan (who got my attention), but so many great local Portland players who are known far and wide like Tony Pacini, Tom Grant, Dan Balmer, Nancy King, Mary Kadderly, Dave Captein, Steve Christofferson and so many others. Portland is a great weird jazz city and this festival just keeps getting better. Looking forward to your reports!
Yippee for Portland!! Great food, entertainment, and overall a wonderful place. I am glad you
are experiencing some of this. I would love to continue to hear more about it.