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.

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

FILMUSIK: Gamera vs. Barugon from Galen Huckins on Vimeo.

Here’s the FILMUSIK writeup with all the details.  Pick up your tickets here, this will be a great show for sure!!

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FILMUSIK joins forces with composer Andrew Oliver to create a new soundtrack for the 1960’s rubber-suit kaiju monster-piece Gamera vs. Barugon. Live voice actors dub the film into english with the original 1966 script and The live ensemble performs the score live at the Hollywood Theatre.

Filmusik: Gamera vs. Barugon
August 26th, 27th
8pm – Hollywood Theatre
Tickets $12/10 Students/seniors

More info at WWW.FILMUSIK.COM
PICK UP TICKETS FOR THE SHOW

Everyone’s favorite incompetent-but-persistent Hero Turtle returns to the Hollywood Theatre in the epic Japanese monster mash Gamera vs. Barugon. After a scientific expedition gone awry, a vicious beast is wreaking havoc on Japan. With its whip-crack tongue, razor-sharp horns and deadly Binaca breath, Barugon is all your childhood nightmares rolled into one badass dinorhino.

Vanquishing Barugon is a tall order, even for a Hero Turtle like Gamera. Luckily, Filmusik has his back. A crew of voice actors, musicians and foley artists provide a live soundtrack to the film, adding new life to every roar and playing up the camp in every straight-from-the-script line of dialogue. Filmusik’s original score, composed by Andrew Oliver and performed in the pit by the Ocular Concern, is guaranteed to get Gamera – and you – all pumped up for the big showdown. Don’t miss the chance to add your cheers and jeers to the soundscape in this dazzling reimagining of a classic film. Gamera can’t do it without you!

ABOUT FILMUSIK: Based out of Portland, Oregon. Filmusik is a collaborative performance group of musicians, composers and actors creating a unique movie experience by performing a new soundtrack for classic films live in the pit.

Whether it’s a vocal chorus wailing away to a spaghetti western gunfight, voice actors dubbing the cartoon characters of Gulliver’s Travels or sound effects (foley) artists smashing crates together for a Japanese monster invasion, seeing professional performers creating sound for the movies live makes for an unforgettable experience.

ANDREW OLIVER is a pianist and composer from Portland, Oregon. He lived in New Orleans from 2002 until 2005, where he studied jazz at Loyola University and performed as both a bandleader and sideman. After evacuating from Hurricane Katrina in the summer of 2005, he returned to Portland.  He has performed throughout the Northwest and Europe with various musicians and groups, and in 2007, as pianist for Devin Phillips and New Orleans Straight Ahead, he was was selected to tour West Africa as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. under the State Department and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad” program.  He co-directs the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble, a 14-piece group performing and commissioning new music by jazz composers in the region, as well as directing the Kora Band, a Seattle-based ensemble fusing jazz and west African musical elements which has recently won “2010 NW Jazz Album of the Year” from Earshot Jazz for their album “Cascades.”  He is also the recipient of a 2011 ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award and a 2011 Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship.

GAMERA vs. BARUGON. After a treacherous expedition to retrieve a giant opal, disaster strikes as the opal reveals itself to be an egg which spawns Barugon, demon dog from Hell! Armed with a deadly tongue and cold beams, Barugon wreaks havoc on Japan. Gamera comes to save the day

Recent conversations with Scott Kennedy (stride pianist extraordinaire from Bridgetown) and Doug Sammons (Bridgetown’s guitarist and the Serenaders’ bandleader) have centered around how extremely hip, rebellious, innovative, and energetic this music was in the 1920′s and 30′s and how unfortunate it is that almost a whole generation of both musicians and non-musicians see it as some sort of historical relic only played by dogmatic preservationists and old fuddy-duddies.  So both of these bands are more or less out to change that perception by attempting to imbue “traditional jazz” or “old-time jazz” or whatever you want to call it with its original spirit and energy.

As much as I am a modernist in some sense, I can’t help but feel that it is also an important facet of my musical life to be a steadfast proponent of the value of traditional jazz without being overly dogmatic – so often in the course of my musical education the music of the 1920′s and 30′s was presented as though it was just some bland history (with notable exceptions of course).  There seems to be a perception among both musicians and non-musicians, promulgated by a certain type of commonly performed “Dixieland”, that all music from that era is indeed bland and uninspired.  Nothing could be further from the truth, in my opinion.  The musicians of that era were charting unknown territory far more than almost any jazz musicians have since, and they were as far ahead of the other popular music of their day as Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” was ahead of its contemporaries.

Let’s consider “Maple Leaf Rag” performed in its original version by Joshua Rifkin, then in Jelly Roll Morton’s brilliant transformation, and finally in a completely off-the-wall performance by Sidney Bechet, whose instrument is nearly blown to pieces during his last chorus (click to listen):

Joshua Rifkin – Maple Leaf Rag

Jelly Roll Morton – Maple Leaf Rag

Sidney Bechet – Maple Leaf Rag

Or, from a slightly different perspective, the white cornetist Bix Beiderbecke with one of the premier dance bands (read: 20′s pop) of the day, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, playing “Dardanella” (at least Bix brings in a tiny glimmer of hope to this one), versus Bix with his own small group playing “Riverboat Shuffle” (make sure to make it to the last chorus!):

Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra – Dardanella

Bix Beiderbecke – Riverboat Shuffle

Now I will acknowledge that it is difficult and indeed a bit strange to rail against dogma and preservationism while at the same time performing a style of music which has long since evolved into something else.  However, what we are trying to accomplish with Bridgetown is perhaps slightly more multifaceted than simple preservationism or serving as our own amusingly anachronistic version of a “cover band.”  The excitement, drive, and rebelliousness manifest in the recordings of the great musicians of the 20′s is undeniably compelling and to us exudes a timeless energy and good spirit.  Of course we imbue it with our own sensibilities, techniques, and modern influences and indeed are more than willing to both acknowledge and experiment with those contemporary elements (thus we are manifestly not a “preservationist” band).  At the same time, our focus remains on capturing the “rebellious, hip, high energy, hard-driving, untamed, unpredictable and unapologetically joyous” spirit of the music (in the words of Scott Kennedy).

This post also reminds me of my attempt to initiate a series of blog posts on Jazz Pioneers back in 2009, which unfortunately was short-lived.  Maybe I ought to take it back up again!  Meanwhile the Morton one contains some more thoughts on this very topic as well as some examples of his own evolution as a pianist: “Jazz Pioneers #1 – Jelly Roll Morton”

And of course the full details for the Jimmy Mak’s show this Friday (where this all started) are over at the “Events” page as well as at the Bridgetown Sextet Website!

Coincidentally, Pablo is coming out to the Northwest next week to pick up a new trumpet, so we get to have a little cross-county collaboration starting tonight at the Shrine in New York and finishing up next Saturday at the Blue Monk in Portland!  Tonight we have another Banff-er, Chad Lefkowitz-Brown on sax and our good friend Pat on bass along with my long-time collaborator and buddy Tyson Stubelek on drums.  Sunday night we’ll be at the Miles Cafe here in NY with the same rhythm section and Matt Jodrell on trumpet also, and we’ll continue the 2-trumpet theme in Seattle and Portland with Chad McCullough.  In Seattle we’ll have Paul Gabrielson on bass and Greg Williamson on drums and in Portland it will be Eric Gruber on bass and Ken Ollis on drums.

We have a nice eclectic batch of originals and choice covers from Herbie Nichols to Jackie McLean, so it will be a nice little run of shows.  I’ll post some audio afterwards and hopefully we’ll see some of you in these various cities!

As you are probably aware, one of my main musical interests these days is the combination of various musical traditions and influences in a non-superficial way (thus the Kora Band), and I was really excited when I found out about these guys several years ago from Kane, and then unexpectedly found them in Portland playing a double bill with the Blue Cranes at the White Eagle.  I later learned that both of them (Char and Robby, who are brothers, by the way) went to school with Rebecca Sanborn, the Cranes’ keyboardist, and then it all became clear!  I was really happy to discover a group that brings in some of my favorite world musics (African and Balkan, specifically) with amazing singing in English (!) and totally pulls it off without even a hint of new age corniness or any watered-down-ness that one may (mistakenly) expect from such a project.

I am very excited to be sharing the stage with them tomorrow evening, Kane and I are going to kick it off with another of our occasional kora/piano duo gigs, this time accompanied by Kevin as I mentioned above, on calabash, and possibly a bit of other percussion as well.  We’ve been working up our traditional repertoire as well as some cool arrangements on old and new Mandinka tunes and we hope that Robby from Round Mountain will join us occasionally on Djembe too.  Then Round Mountain will rock it, as always, so I hope everyone can make it out for what will surely be a special evening!

By the way, you can get a preview of Round Mountain here.  Enjoy!

Also, Alberta Street Public House is at 10th and Alberta in NE, and the show starts at 9:30.  Cool, I think that’s everything…

It’s always enjoyable to put together some trio gigs when Tyson is back in town, as we tend to do, and this trip is no exception: we’ll be playing Thursday night at the Camellia Lounge and Sunday night as part of an excellent new series put on by Ninkasi Brewing at the Blue Monk, which used to have jazz all the time before canceling their music program a number of years ago.  Fortunately they are bringing music back to the club including this Sunday night jazz series curated by Mary Sue Tobin.

The good old piano trio is, of course, a tried-and-true format, but one with which I have never worked on a regular basis.  I have been attempting to compose some new tunes for these gigs and found myself increasingly unable to come up with nice tunes without orchestrating them for a specific group.  For some reason I am always hearing more parts than what is generally possible for a piano trio when I am composing.  I suppose this is an asset in many ways, though sometimes frustrating.  Nonetheless I have come up with some nice and relatively chill tunes for this week’s gigs as well as mining my almost-reorganized piles of sheet music for some nice old and new tunes and learning some Abdullah Ibrahim songs, which I feel will work really well with the specific personnel we have this time.

So, I hope some of you can make it out on Thursday or Sunday nights, and if it goes really well maybe I’ll post some audio too!

We just finished a couple weeks on the road in Washington, Oregon, and California touring the new album and had a great time as well as building audiences up and down the West Coast.  Our big CD release show will be this Friday night, the 24th at Jimmy Mak’s in Portland.  As with last time we played there, the excellent Blue Cranes will be opening.  They have also recently put out a new album and are sounding better than ever, and they will be joined by a string section for this one so it’ll really be a treat.  Reservations can be made at 503-295-6542 to ensure seating.

Here are a few links to various places you can get the new album.  I hope you enjoy it, we’re really proud of this one.  We reached #22 on the JazzWeek Radio Charts last week and we hope to keep up the momentum there as well!  You can find more info on the band as well as some photos from our tour, etc, etc at the Kora Band site: http://www.koraband.com

Purchase physical CD at OA2 Records

Purchase physical CD at Amazon

Download at Amazon

Download at iTunes

Well I’ve been a bit absent from the internet of late, partially due to nice weather and partially due to various trips and a typically nutso schedule in general.  However, I’m back and ready to type, as it were, armed with some great upcoming shows for the rest of the summer and into the fall, as well as some more Post-Colonial African Grooves of the Week (starting up again on Friday), the reprise of some more thoughts on Morton and other jazz pioneers, and more.

Speaking of Morton, my first big show this summer (yes, here in Portland the sun has only recently come out for good!) is a double-bill I’ve been looking forward to for some time, featuring my old-timey band the Bridgetown Sextet and the Midnight Serenaders,  one of my favorite bands of any genre in Portland, at Jimmy Mak’s, Portland’s classiest jazz club, this Saturday night!

I don’t always mention Bridgetown stuff on this blog, but it has really turned from sort of a fun side-hobby band into one of my favorite projects of late.  My good friend of many many years Scott Kennedy and I started the group a couple of years ago after a long history with the style.  We met in 5th grade, at which point I was a nerdy classical pianist and he knew nothing about music.  Several years later, we both began to develop an interest in ragtime and early jazz, and around that time I decided to teach myself trumpet and we both picked up some drumming from my high school band teacher after school.  Meanwhile, I began moving from classical to jazz piano and Scott decided to teach himself piano from scratch, starting out rather amazingly with the Maple Leaf Rag, hardly the world’s easiest piece of music.

After many years of blundering through attempts to play as a duo and occasionally add other musicians, Scott and I found ourselves back in Portland after college, and decided to put this group together.  We figured that we would just call the best musicians in the style who we could find in town and see if they would do it, and miraculously they all said yes!  We’ve made a very strong effort to play the music in a fresh and energetic style reminiscent of the original vibe of the music, rather than in any sort of “preservationist” manner, and I feel that we’ve developed a uniquely exciting way of approaching the repertoire, a sentiment which, fortunately for us, has been echoed by Portland’s vibrant swing dance community!

So, all in all, we’re excited to bring the old-time stomp down to Jimmy Mak’s on Saturday and of course to share the bill with the Serenaders, who have really been instrumental in bringing attention to old-time jazz and swing in Portland over the past 5 years.  We were recently in the studio recording the first half of a new album, so here are some excerpts from those tracks to whet your appetite for the show (click to listen):

King Porter Stomp

Who’s Sorry Now

Buddy Bolden’s Blues

I’m Gonna Stomp Mr. Henry Lee

Our first album, “Authentic Old-Time Jazz and Swing” is available over at Bandcamp, you can check it out below and click on the album art to get there!

And I would be amiss not to finish by listing the personnel who make this whole thing happen.

Bridgetown Sextet:
Scott Kennedy – piano, drums
Andrew Oliver – cornet, drums, piano
Doug Sammons – guitar, vocals
David Evans – clarinet, tenor sax
John Moak – trombone (on recordings linked above)
Dave Bryan – trombone (currently in the band)
Eric Gruber, bass

We’re just about to head into Two Sticks studio in Seattle to record our second album (our first, Just 4 U, came out in April of 09) with Don Gunn, our favorite engineer.  This one will be out in September on Origin Records, continuing my excellent relationship with them!

So, come out to Jimmy’s tomorrow night for this show if you’re in Portland, it’ll be a great one!  Reservations at 503-295-6542.