Happy New Year!
Posted on | January 9, 2012 | No Comments
Happy new year to everyone! The holday season was lots of fun here in Portland and I hope everyone had an enjoyable time as well. Having finally recovered from the festivities it was time for the Bridgetown Sextet CD release this last weekend (as usual my failure to post timely notices of these things on this blog is evident), which was a whole lot of fun. The CD will be online very soon. Meanwhile you can at least enjoy the cover art and some samples at the Bridgetown site. 
There’s lots of Bridgetown activity this winter and spring, with a Mardi Gras show at the Mission Theater and appearances at the Seaside Jazz Festival and the Portland Lindy Exchange as well as our usual club gigs.
There’s a lot to look forward to this year. My ongoing First Wednesday series at Tony Starlight’s will continue, this month (1/11) we’ll be introducing a new trumpeter, Tom Barber, who recently moved to town from NYC. The series will continue with various guests and ensembles throughout the year.
The Kora Band is back in action, starting with a quartet gig (no trumpet) at Traditions in Olympia next saturday and an appearance of my and Kane’s duo at the Blue Monk series next Sunday. The full band will be playing shows in Seattle and Portland throughout the year and is working on an April west coast tour and (hopefully) new album!
The Portland Jazz Composers’ Ensemble is also chugging along with our next concert during the PDX Jazz Festival Feb. 23 at Gallery 135 in the Pearl. We’ll have new music by Dan Duval, Reed Wallsmith, Joe Cunningham, and Justin Morrell and special guests Paul Brainard on pedal steel and Mike Horsfall on vibes. We’ll continue after that with a March octet performance and the full band again in May!
Pete Krebs, guitarist extraordinare, and I are starting a new trio tentatively called the Upright Piano Trio, along with Keith Brush on bass, playing some of the Nat King Cole and Oscar Peterson drummerless trio repertoire, as well as other old forgotten gems and new originals. We’ll be debuting that band Jan. 19 at the Camellia Lounge and performing throughout the year at various venues while also trying to encourage Portland venues to acquire upright pianos.
The Ocular Concern continues under the radar, we’ll be accompanying Haley Horsfall next Wednesday at the White Eagle Unfiltered Showcase and will continue to present slightly abstruse but hopefully intriguing original music and world folk covers. Wow, what a sentence!
Tunnel Six will be touring again in June, we’ll be in Alberta, BC, Washington, and Oregon and will be recording a live album during that tour!
OK more to come. Onward and upward and Happy New Year!
Return of the Kora Band!
Posted on | December 15, 2011 | No Comments
Kane Mathis in Brikama, Gambia with Malamini Jobarteh, his kora teacher of 15 years!
Kane Mathis has been off in Europe and Africa for much of the fall and so the Kora Band has been on somewhat of a hiatus, but we’re back for a gig this Saturday night in Seattle at a great house concert series in the Burien neighborhood. If you’re in the area and would like to check it out you can email Lance at llh@lanceandlaurie.net for full info. These fine people open up their house (which was specially constructed to also serve as a great place for live music) a few times a month for an ongoing series of concerts and we’re excited to be part of it!
We’re also gearing up for a nice year of activity in 2012 with some January concerts in Olympia and Portland (sans Chad unfortunately, who will be off galavanting around Europe again!), and then in Feb. and March in Seattle as we get ready for another west coast tour in April, and possibly another album in the works later in the year.
Time to write some new music!
Busy Week – Herbie Nichols Wednesday / PJCE Returns Saturday!
Posted on | December 4, 2011 | No Comments
This week I have two shows of interest, I’m especially excited about the return of the full 14-piece Portland Jazz Composers’ Ensemble at the Community Music Center Saturday night. I’ll also be at Tony Starlight’s on Wednesday with some great music by Herbie Nichols, the obscure but fascinating pianist from the 50′s-60′s era.
We have four new compositions for you from Charley Gray, director of Jazz Studies at PSU and an illustrious large ensemble composer, our co-director Gus Slayton, Portland guitarist and composerKyle Williams, and NYC-based Portland native (and former PJCE member) Eric Allen, who will be presenting his own unique take on some Christmas music for us.
Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 day of show. $10 for students They’re now on salehere. Save a few bucks and get them in advance!
We’ll be featuring essays by each composer on the PJCE Blog in advance of the event to give you a taste of what they’re up to. So far Eric and Kyle’s essays are up. Have a look!
Thanks for your support and we hope to see you Dec. 10 to support some great new, local music.
Herbie Nichols has been coming to prominence of late with the Herbie Nichols Project, run by the jazz composers collective in NYC in the 90′s, as well as with Roswell Rudd’s publication of many of Herbie’s unrecorded compositions. We’ll be tackling some of them in a relaxed evening at Tony’s, part of my first Wednesday series. These are really great tunes that deserve to be heard more often, hope to see you there.
Chad McCullough / Bram Weijters + Ocular Concern Wednesday!
Posted on | November 1, 2011 | No Comments
My ongoing series on the first Wednesday of the month at Tony Starlight’s continues with some very special guests from Belgium and an opening set by my trio The Ocular Concern. Hope to see some folks out to support this fledgling series bringing new and varied projects to Tony’s each month!
This month we have my good friend trumpeter Chad McCullough down from Seattle with one of his own groups. Chad and I have been playing together in the Kora Band and Tunnel Six for over 2 years and I’m excited to present this great quartet he has put together with some freinds from Belgium, Bram Weijters on piano and Piet Verbist on bass. They released an album “Imaginary Sketches” that came out last year along with a big tour in Europe. NowBram and Piet have come over state-side to do some recording and touring including a stop off here on the 2nd. Their quartet will be rounded out by Portland drummer Jason Palmer. Great original music and a nice international collaboration. Here’s a video from last year in Belgium
My trio The Ocular Concern will be playing an opening set. Featuring Dan Duval on guitar and Stephen Pancerev on drums alongside me on electric piano, we’ve been crafting a unique sound that is both innovative and subtle for a few years, and you probably recall our recent exploits accompanying the 1963 Japanese monster-movie “Gamera vs. Barugon” this summer with a new score I wrote for FILMUSIK. We’ll play some music from that as well as some new tunes and covers from various places around the world. Here’s a very dark but nice video from the Crow Bar last summer for a taste.
Details:
Wednesday, November 2, 2011. 7:30 PM
Andrew Oliver Presents…
1st set - The Ocular Concern
(Andrew Oliver, electric piano; Dan Duval, guitar; Stephen Pancerev, drums)
2nd set - Chad McCullough / Bram Weijters Quartet
(Chad McCullough, trumpet (Seattle); Bram Weijters, piano (Antwerp, Belgium); Piet Verbist, bass (Antwerp); Jason Palmer, drums (Portland))
Tony Starlight’s Supper Club and Lounge
3728 NE Sandy Blvd.
Portland, OR
$8
Bridgetown at Secret Society Friday
Posted on | October 17, 2011 | No Comments
Well I have been a bit lax about show promo and substantial blog info recently! My calendar page is now updated through the end of the year finally, a few more things to be added soon but at least it’s not empty!! First up is some great swing from Bridgetown Sextet at Secret Society this Friday, 10/21, which is an especially great venue in that it is “time-period appropriate” in vibe and has a fantastic dance floor! Hope to see you there, and more content is coming soon!
West Coast Jazz Part 2: Shelly Manne / Russ Freeman
Posted on | September 29, 2011 | 2 Comments
I am happy to be continuing my relatively new series (this will be the 2nd installment) at Tony Starlight’s on Oct. 5. The series is the first Wednesday of the month and I present a different project, theme, or guest each time.
For October I am digging back into the vaults of West Coast Jazz of the 50′s and featuring music written by and associated with the pianist Russ Freeman and drummer Shelly Manne.
We’ll be performing some music from interesting albums Shelly Manne led with duos and trios (one with him and Russ Freeman and another with him, Shorty Rogers, and Jimmy Giuffre (no bass or piano!), some Russ Freeman trio numbers, and some pieces drawn from the repertoire of Shelly Manne and his men, a swingin’ quintet that Manne led throughout the 50′s and 60′s.
We have a great lineup for this one featuring Eric Gruber on bass and Tim DuRoche on drums and David Evans and Paul Mazzio rounding out the horn section. Hope you can check it out Oct. 5 at Tony’s!