The best seats are selling fast!
Luciana Souza: Superior section sold out, best Prime selling fast
Mingus Big Band: Superior nearly sold out, best Prime selling fast
Dave Holland: A dozen Superior seats remaining, best Prime selling fast
Pharoah Sanders: Superior sold out, best Prime selling fast
Dave Douglas: A dozen Superior seats remaining
All Norwegian shows: A couple dozen Superior seats remaining
Norway has quietly been building its cache of fine jazz musicians ever since America’s indigenous music landed on its shores in the 1920’s. Bolstered in recent years by Norwegian government support, Nordic jazz has made a big push spreading internationally. With seven universities dedicated to jazz, there’s no doubt Norway will continue to be a force in keeping jazz alive. This year the 2010 Alaska Airlines/ Horizon Air Portland Jazz Festival presented by US Bank is thrilled to present a trio of ensemble premieres to North America as part of the festival showcase, “Is Jazz Dead (or has it moved to a new address)? New Music from Norway.”
Trygve Seim wowed audiences in 2007 with his ensemble, and this year he comes with Frode Haltli with whom he recently released an atmospheric jazz improvisation called “Yraz” on ECM Records. All About Jazz calls their latest album, “An intimate, deep and beautiful exploration.” Seim’s ECM debut “Different Rivers” won the annual prize of the German Record Critics (Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2001). Similarly, Haltli’s ECM debut “Looking on Darkness” won the French Prix Gus Viseur in 2004 as well as the Norwegian Spellemannprisen for Best Contemporary Music Album. For their concert on Saturday, February 27 (3:00 PM), they’ll present music from Yraz and other collaborations as a duo of saxophone and accordion.
Also on ECM, The Christian Wallumrod Ensemble represents the intersection of jazz, chamber and experimental music. Christian Wallumrod has worked (more…)
Most of the discounted multiple concert packages for the 2010 Portland Jazz Festival are sold out (still a few left). The popular A-Train and Broadway packages first offered in October are gone, and a limited number of the Nordic Tones package remains -offering general admission tickets for the three Norwegian showcases. Reserved seats for In The Country, Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli, and the Christian Wallumrod Ensemble are almost sold out! Individual, Superior-level tickets for the Mingus Big Band are sold out, but some balcony seats remain. The best seats for Luciana Souza, Dave Holland Quintet, Pharoah Sanders, and Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy are going fast!
One other remaining ticket package is available via the Amtrak Cascades PDX Jazz Train, leaving Seattle at noon on Friday, February 26 and returning Sunday evening, February 28. This package includes seats to Sanders, Holland, and Mingus, plus hotel, a Friday VIP reception, Sunday brunch and transportation to your hotel. For more information on the Jazz Train click here or call the PDX Jazz Box Office. Reserve by February 8.
For the best remaining individual concert tickets call the PDX Jazz Box Office, 503-228-JAZZ (5299), 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM (Monday through Friday), walk-in to the box office at 133 SW Second Avenue, Suite 420, Portland, or contact Ticketmaster.
KEEP AN EYE ON THE WEBSITE FOR MORE UPDATES
Reserve the Jazz Train package and make your festival experience memorable by riding the rails with other jazz fans. Whether you live in Vancouver, BC or Seattle, Washington, the Amtrak Cascades delivers you from your departure city to your hotel door.
The Jazz Train package includes:
Submitted by Portland Spoke
Calling all fedoras, fancy dresses and sport coats. Feb. 21-28, 2010, the Portland Jazz Festival returns to get music lovers, culture vultures, movers and shakers up and out of their regular winter routine.
Want to be one of the cool kids? Click to make a reservation at a participating Jazz Festival hotel. Need more convincing? Read more.
Known as a true innovator, Dave Douglas perennially invents new ensembles with new sounds. For the 2010 festival, the comparisons to the legendary Lester Bowie and his Brass Fantasy group come to fruition in a 21st Century way. Douglas brings his ensemble of trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba, and drums, aptly named Brass Ecstasy. While the group plays mostly original tunes, their recent release, Spirit Moves, features arrangements of tunes by Otis Redding, Hank Williams and Steve Cropper.
“Dave Douglas arguably became the most original trumpeter/composer of his generation. Douglas’ stylistic range is broad yet unaffected; his music is not a pastiche, but rather a personal aesthetic that reflects a wide variety of interests. He explicitly cites such diverse influences as Igor Stravinsky, Stevie Wonder, and John Coltrane. As a composer, Douglas adapts and synthesizes unusual forms and creates his own out of disparate elements. As a trumpeter, Douglas possesses a comprehensive jazz technique; certainly, one hears the ghost of Lester Bowie in Douglas’ expressive manipulations of timbre and pitch, but more pronounced is the integration of distinctive compositional and improvisational conceptions that ultimately defines his work.” – All Music Guide
Douglas performs Sunday February 28, 7:30 PM at the Crystal Ballroom; a great way to wrap up the festival. Tickets available
Norway has quietly been building its cache of fine jazz musicians ever since America’s indigenous music landed on its shores in the 1920’s. Bolstered in recent years by Norwegian government support, Nordic jazz has made a big push, spreading internationally. With seven universities dedicated to jazz, there’s no doubt Norway will continue to be a force in keeping jazz alive. This year the 2010 Portland Jazz Festival is thrilled to present a trio of ensemble premieres to North America. Perhaps one of the most well known, Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli (you may recall Trygve’s well-received visit to the festival three years ago) recently released an atmospheric jazz improvisation called Yraz on ECM Records. Also an ECM artist, the Christian Wallumrod Ensemble represents the intersection of jazz, chamber and experimental music. While relatively new on the scene as a group, In The Country has garnered critical acclaim with their electrifying blend of jazz, rock and country. Don’t miss these shows at the Grieg Lodge (Norse Hall) – Norway has never been so close! Buy general admission tickets to all three shows for only $50 with the Nordic Tones package.
Luciana Souza, set to appear on Thursday, February 25 for the 2010 Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air Portland Jazz Festival presented by US Bank has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal for her 2009 album, Tide, produced by Larry Klein. Read a good commentary over at NPR, on the significant showing jazz musicians have this year for the awards.
Festival to also Present
“Is Jazz Dead (Or Has It Moved to a New Address)? – New Music from Norway”
Showcasing Three North American Premiere Performances
PORTLAND, Ore. – The 2010 Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air Portland Jazz Festival presented by US Bank will be held February 21-28 with jazz outreach programming in area schools and community centers on Monday through Friday, February 21-26, leading up to a series of headline concerts Thursday through Sunday, February 25-28 throughout downtown and inner Eastside Portland venues.
Lauded as one of the top North American jazz events, the 7th annual Portland Jazz Festival features jazz masters and emerging new artists including three-time Grammy Award-winning bassist, bandleader and composer Dave Holland Quintet, legendary saxophonist and John Coltrane collaborator Pharoah Sanders, the Mingus Big Band devoted since 1993 to the musical legacy of Charles Mingus, Brazilian vocalist Luciana Souza, and contemporary trumpeter Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy.
Additionally, Portland Jazz Festival’s annual thematic programming asks the provocative question Is Jazz Dead (Or Has It Moved to a New Address)? – New Music from Norway, featuring North American premieres of leaders in Norway’s new and burgeoning jazz scene. This “festival-within-a-festival” includes the avant-garde chamber jazz of the Christian Wallumrod Ensemble, the saxophone/ accordion duo of Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli, and the jazz/rock fusion of In The Country featuring Morten Qvenild (keyboards), Roger Arntzen (bass) and Pal Hausken (percussion).
Collectively Lucoff and artistic director Bill Royston hold more than 50 years of combined experience in the jazz industry
PORTLAND, Ore. – Scoring a major coup, PDX Jazz has appointed music industry veteran Don Lucoff as the organization’s next managing director. Lucoff, president of DL Media, has represented nearly every major jazz label and a wide spectrum of jazz artists throughout his 26-year career. He has also driven the national publicity efforts of the Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air Portland Jazz Festival presented by US Bank for the past two seasons.
Lucoff joins artistic director and PDX Jazz co-founder Bill Royston, who holds his own impressive resume in jazz as an artistic director and event producer. Royston was nominated as Jazz Producer of the Year in both 2007 and 2008 by the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) and has been a driving force behind bringing groundbreaking jazz to the Portland area for 14 years.
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