Friday, October 3, 2008
Like Lazarus (or John McCain's "suspended" Campaign) PDX Jazz is back
From a Portland Jazz Festival Press Release dated October 1 2008
Alaska Airlines has agreed to a multi-year title sponsorship of the Portland Jazz Festival, providing the financial support necessary to revive the world-class festival, which had announced in early September that it was ceasing operations after five years.
You may recall the story here. On September 8 the board of directors of the Portland Jazz Festival suspended operations because Qwest pulled out their 100k corporate sponsorship. There was still over 500k in the budget, but the directors and board refused to compromise on what the festival should be: two weeks, dozens of events including high profile shows in hotel ballrooms and the Portland Performing Arts Center. Well Alaska Airlines apparently earned enough money with extra baggage charges and saved enough from no longer giving away meals to fill the gap and now we have ta-da, the Alaska Airlines Portland Jazz Festival (no kidding)
In a way that is probably a good choice, despite the creepy corporate renaming. The festival was really aimed at out of towners coming in to fill hotel rooms. Travel agency baron Sho Dozono played a part of the effort for reconstituting the festival. Townies have never really been catered to by PDX Jazz. There is no wrist band option for floating between venues or bundled ticket packages. Out of towners don't mind spending another twenty or thirty dollars for a late night show because they are burning up their cash already.
I hold mixed feelings about the festival. I think directors Sarah Bailen Smith and Bill Royston have accomplished something special with it, but at the same time, there is a kind of elitism to the programming and how to get to it. As I begged the question in a prior post, does a festival necessarily have to be "world class" by running two weeks and having a three quarter of million dollar budget? I wonder.
And I wonder also how it is going to perform this year. Sure February is a few months out, but no line up has been released except Pollstar listings for Diane Reeves on Valentine's Day and Terrence Blanchard the day before. The fest had been touted as having a BlueNote records 70th Anniversary theme, but the Blue Note Anniversary tour with Bill Charlap, Nicholas Payton and Ravi Coltrane is still slated to play in Portland at the Newmark a month earlier than the festival's dates.
It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. I look forward to checking out the calendar to see if they can create a weekend or two with entertainment opportunities that will equal that in NYC. Hopefully they will come up with great options. My PDX Jazz daydreams---Cassandra Wilson (more interesting than Reeves, for sure), give us a chance to see boppers like Moody and Konitz one more time, maybe some legends like Ahmad Jamal, Bobby Hutcherson. Or Cedar Walton? Or Hank Jones or George Coleman (for real!)? Or maybe give Portland an acid jazz evening with the likes of Roy Ayers or Incognito or Kyoto Jazz Massive. Maybe go Brazilian with Nasciemento or a tribute to Jobim with some world class musicians. Maybe go west coast with Bud Shank or Gerald Wilson or Jack Sheldon. Or what about Mulgrew Miller or Eric Alexander? Or Roscoe Mitchell? Or Steve Coleman? Or Pharoh Sanders? Or John Handy? Or Trombone Shorty and a bunch of NOLA folks...I could fill a screen or two with the names of folks I'd like to see in February without too much ornamentation and a reasonable ticket price. Royston and Bailen Smith might come through. We'll see.
I imagine I'll be checking back on the buffet with further observations after the lineup is announced.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:37 PM
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