![\"Christian](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Christian-McBride-by-Mark-Sheldon-2.jpg\")
<\/a>McBride\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trio had the bright young sidemen Christian Sands on piano and Ulysses Owens, Jr., on drums. Their three-way exchanges on the Ellington-Tizol standard \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Caravan\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and on Sands\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 waltz-time \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sand Dunes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were compelling. McBride is a larger-than-life personality whose stage presence complements his ability to play with absolute command of the bass at any tempo. Dazzling even when his blizzards of notes amounted only to blizzards of notes, he counterbalanced displays of virtuosity with depth and earnestness as he bowed the melody of Rodger and Hammerstein\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Have Dreamed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\nMcBride introduced Freda Payne as a surprise guest. She sang \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d Rather Drink Muddy Water\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in carbon copies of what she had done two nights earlier at Jimmy Mak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s club (see the report<\/a>). A natural raconteur, McBride recruited the audience to participate by clapping time on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a 1970s R&B hit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d whose title he did not announce and, it turned out, did not need to. Called back for an encore, he said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gonna lay a little Thelonious Monk on ya.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d There was no detectable Monk melody in what followed, but he, Sands and Owens had great fun playing the blues and earned—guess what?—that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right, a standing ovation. The Portland audience is generous with those. <\/p>\n These days, the 88-year-old Lou Donaldson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alto saxophone solos consist mostly of quotes as sound The Bill Charlap Trio is a chamber group of a quality customarily found only in equally long-lived classical ensembles. In their years together, pianist Charlap, bassist Peter Washington and drummer The concert was a succession of memorable moments. A few of them: Charlap\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unaccompanied performance of Rodgers and Hart\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It Never Entered My Mind\u00e2\u20ac\u009d melded into the trio as they sustained the mood in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In The Still Of The Night,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d taken at a fast clip, incorporated bass and drum solos during which Charlap listened intently, absorbing every nuance and occasionally nodding in understanding or approval. After the first chorus of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On A Slow Boat To China,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the tempo kicked up to near the edge of insanity, exciting the audience and leading them to demand an encore. They got two; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Only The Lonely\u00e2\u20ac\u009d played by Charlap alone, and a trio performance of, appropriately, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcOne For The Road.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d There was a standing ovation.<\/p>\n The concert was one of those listening experiences that one wishes he could take home and play back. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [contextly_auto_sidebar id=”rF0eDyTpLAFzu8MsJDiRjSnwZo8FkTBA”] In the student competition held in connection with the festival, first-place prizes went to alto saxophonist Joel Steinke and singer Jacob Houser, both from Edmonds-Woodway High School near Seattle. Backed by the trio of pianist George Colligan, a Portlander transplanted from New York, they each played two numbers as they opened for bassist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> gags, and clich\u00c3\u00a9s from his own and other peoples\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 recordings. His repartee, long on wryness and glancing reflections on human failings—his own and others\u00e2\u20ac\u2122—is as sharp as ever. With guitarist Eric Johnson, drummer Fukushi Tainaka and Hammond B3 organist Pat Bianchi, Donaldson made his way through a set long on jokes, blues singing (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whiskey Drinking Woman\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) and extended solos by Johnson, Bianchi and Tainaka. He had Johnson, with a wireless transmitter on his guitar, wander around the audience for a lengthy traveling solo on Donaldson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1967 hit \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Alligator Boogaloo.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d All of this endeared Donaldson to the audience, which evidently arrived knowing what to expect. <\/p>\n<\/a>Kenny Washington have achieved singleness of purpose and unity of thought to a degree rare in any musical idiom. At the Portland festival, they applied their wisdom, experience and empathy in a recital of pieces from Frank Sinatra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vast repertoire. From the opening \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Know What Time It Was\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the closing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One For The Road,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d their balance, restraint and swing, their regard for the material and one another, combined in an hour and a half of absorbing playing—and listening.<\/p>\n<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Only A Paper Moon.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They concluded the piece with a blues ending and, after all of Charlap\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Peter Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sophisticated harmonic changes, the surprising openness of a major chord. Sinatra made a recording of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stardust\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that consisted of only the song\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s introductory verse. Charlap played the verse thoughtfully by himself, perhaps with Sinatra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s version in mind. The Washingtons joined in the chorus, firmed up the swing and then the three wound down to a final eight bars of lyricism. With <\/a>wire brushes on snare drum, Kenny Washington demonstrated in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s A Small Hotel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that he is a modern master of what someone once called that tough, straight art. <\/p>\n