Friday, July 4, 2008
Blues on the Water & the Waterfront
One of the most established of Portland traditions is the four day blues festival held at Tom McCall Waterfront park each year as a fund raiser for the Oregon Food Bank. i have watched this event evolve and grow over the past 21 years. If I am in town, I'll closely look at the line up and pick one or two days to go down and check out the tunes. When the names are highly recognizable and the weather is excellent, Portlanders can love this event to death with crowds exceeding the capacity of the park's main bowl.
But there were no such issues on my expedition to the fest and also its sponsored Voodoo Blues Cruise on the Portland Spirit on Thursday, July 3, the opening day of this year's event. It turned out to be one of the best evenings of music I have ever had in this area.
We went down to the festival during the seven o'clock hour where local musicians were wrapping up a program of Memphis R and B favorites. This was followed up by Joe Bonamassa a thirty year old guitar slinger who feels like he is following in the wake of Stevie Ray Vaughn. Unless one has a true feeling for this music especially the rock drenched high pitched form of vocals, a little bit can kind of go a long ways. But still, his craft and intent were strongly executed, especially with the acoustic sequence about that led off the last third of his hour set.
One of the strengths of the Waterfront Blues Fest is that it is structured to have two stages on opposite ends of the bowl that alternate from one to another leaving little or no time for set up. This works well most of the time, but it did not come headliner time on Thursday. From what we could glean from KINK's Les Sarnoff punting Isaac Hayes and his folks did not approve of the drums on stage and another set was going to brought onstage. This took nearly half an hour.
Hayes band included three keyboardists, four vocalists as well as standard soul rhythm sessions as well as Black Moses himself on keyboards isolated to the right side of the stage. No wonder they needed a bigger bass drum. The set began with Don't Let Go, then the underrated Joy a gem from 1973 that grows better with age. At that point things broke down a little bit. Isaac hit some pretty clamish notes during By the Time I Get to Phoenix and Walk On By. But the soul was still there, but most importantly the symphonic funk arrangements were handled quite well by the back up vocalists and the fleet of keyboards. The horn line with its resolution of being bound to the road at the end of Phoenix and the background vocal of "Walk On..." with strong emphasis on the W and k are more essential to the Hayes sound and attitude than a vocal that flounders a tad. And let's face it, after suffering a stroke of two years ago, we are just glad to have him play our party.
And speaking of parties, it was time to move on to another one. Boarding time for the Hoodoo cruise on the Portland Spirit was coming on, but not til we got to see a couple numbers by the great Fred Wesley, trombonist of the Horny Horns and along with Bootsy Collins, Pee Wee Ellis, Maceo Parker, and Bobby Byrd, one of the most recognizable of the James Brown alumni. The main tune we got to hear was Bop to the Boogie, an infectious bit of groove and word play that had the the crowd at the A&E stage on the other side of the Hawthorne Bridge responding most ebulliently. Fred was the guest of Groovesect, a group of young musicians from New Orleans who were collaborating with this master in fine form indeed.
We boarded the Spirit for the three hour tour (just like Gilligan, I thought) The first half of the trip was spent checking out what its like to go under most of the Willamette River's key Portland bridges and make our way towards St Johns. The three decks of the Spirit each featured a stage and a bar. I didn't get too much of an impression on Alex Weed, Carolyn Wonderland, and the Joe McMurrian Quartet because I was so involved with digging the scene and the scenery, especially the imposing view of the Fremont Bridge from below and the extensive dry dock operation south of St Johns. But the second half of the trip, spent mainly in big loops between the Hawthorne and Burnside bridges was another story all together.
I began by watching the beginning of the mid deck show by Canned Heat, boogie blues veterans of the sixties. I can do a pretty good imitation of "Goin' Up Country, Got to Get Away..." And yes, it felt like a bar party at the White Eagle, but downstairs felt like going to the Maple Leaf in crosstown New Orleans.
I wasn't prepared for the fire, intensity or showmanship of Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, 22 year old funk party grand master. His five piece band played incredible groove filled versions of GAP band's Shake Your Booty, and the Meters' Cissy Strut that were as high an energy experience as I have had at a concert since seeing Ivan Neville's band a year ago at High Sierra. Trombone Shorty played this year's High Sierra and I left phone message for a pal taking that festival on this year not to miss this act. In the video clip profile that follow he refers to it as Super Funk Rock--sounds like a good description of it to me. It had been a long time since total strangers are shouting at each other between songs about how incredible the music was. And when the Spirit docked no one left the boat until every note from Shorty and his band was over for sure. We walked over the Morrison Bridge back to our car at 1:30 or so on the Fourth of July feeling that this year, there was no way the fourth could out do the third.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:04 PM
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