2024 “Portland Jazz Master”
The Portland Jazz Master recognizes a regional artist or other jazz community member for their work and contributions to jazz in the Portland region. The PDX Jazz Programming Committee selects the Portland Jazz Master each year.

From coffee house gigs at fifteen to chart-topping success with the Tom Grant Band in the 90s, world tours with two-time Grammy Award winner Diane Schuur and contemporary jam-bands, Dan Balmer brings fire and heart every time he plays the guitar. His playing spans nearly one hundred CDs including twelve as a leader from which his original works have appeared internationally in television, film and radio.

An in-demand educator, Dan maintains a busy schedule of private lessons, group clinics and master classes throughout the US and abroad. He adjudicates student jazz band competitions at events such as the Monterey Next Generation Festival and Reno Jazz Festival along with being a long-term teacher at the Centrum Jazz Workshop. He is the director of jazz combos at Lewis And Clark College while also on faculty at virtually every other college in the greater Portland, Oregon area.

Dan has performed or toured with Joey DeFrancesco, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Les McCann, Javon Jackson and Karrin Allyson, Benny Golson, Jeff Hamilton, Gerald Clayton, John Clayton, Terell Stafford, Ingrid Jensen, Duduka da Fonseca, Kendrick Scott, Taylor Eigsti, Buddy De Franco, Bruce Forman and countless others.

Dan’s love of guitar and making music combined with discipline, technique and restless curiosity provide an ever-deepening experience for himself and his listeners. In every performance he finds himself in the middle of the path, amidst a continuous and compelling process of discovery.

Photo: Norm Eder