No Room For Squares

A really nice line-up once again at the Portland Jazz Fest, it’s theme for this year is “Bridges & Boundaries-Jewish & African Americans Playing Jazz”.   I will be covering the festival for Downbeat…look for a recap of the festival in an upcoming issue.

The festival runs from February 18-27 and features Randy Weston, Anat Fort, Dave Frishberg during the first weekend and Don Byron Plays Mickey Kazt, Esperanza Spalding, Nik Bartsch’s Ronin+Blue Cranes, Pancho Sanchez, The 3 Cohens (Anat, Avishai and Yuval) + Afro-Semitic Experience, the SF Jazz Collective doing the music of Stevie Wonder, Regina Carter, Joshua Redman and Maceo Parker.

Tickets can be purchased at www.pdxjazz.com

The image above of Pat Martino was made inside the Crystal Ballroom at the 2009 Portland Jazz Fest.

The always amazing Fred Anderson

It appears Fred Anderson’s legendary Velvet Lounge has closed their doors, possilby for good.  Fred passed away last June after a short illness and despite great effort by his Grandaughters to keep it open, it just wasn’t to be.   The Grandaughters did a great job but end the end, Fred’s son took control of it and basically did nothing with it. 

Man, I have a lot of great memories of this location and the one located on Indiana Avenue.  Seeing Fred along side greats such as Henry Grimes, the equally wonderful Kidd Jordan, Hamiett Bluiett, Harrison Bankhead, Dee Alexander, Roscoe Mitchell, Billy Brimfield and many other great musicians was really a treat.  Fred was just a wonderful man, a friend to all that knew him and an amazing artist and mentor to hundreds of musicians over several decades.  Long Live Fred Anderson!!!

The legendary Red Holloway performing at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago.  Summer 2010

Indianapolis Jazz Legacy Project → Melvin Rhyne

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This image of the great Dr. Lonnie Smith was made on April 12th 2010 at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis.  After sitting through about three hours of music with his trio; it appears the good doctor is getting better with age.  Lonnie lived in Indianapolis for a short time or as he told me “I stayed in Naptown for a minute”.  Some of the guys in Indy that he played with or knew him from his days here came out for the show, most notably drummer Mad Harold Cardwell.  Lonnie spent much of his break and an hour or so after the show to pose for photos and sign cds for a long line of fans. 

Much of the music he played this night is off of his new, soon to be release recording called “Spiral”.

I spoke with Lonnie for a few minutes, he had some great stories to share about some of the guys in Indy.  It was great to have him back in ”Naptown” as Lonnie still refers to it as, after a couple years….I hope he’ll be back soon.