Portland Jazz Festival Signature Series
Each year, the Portland Jazz Festival produces a Signature Series of concerts, educational workshops, public events and outreach focused on an artist or group that has shaped jazz into its many modern forms.
2008 - The Shape of Jazz to Come
The legendary alto saxophonist, whose last Portland appearance was in 1983, will be celebrated through a series of performances, lectures, panel discussions, and workshops dealing with the issue of jazz’s future shape. Coleman will participate in a special Jazz Conversation with New York writer Howard Mandel, President of the Jazz Journalists Association and Coleman biographer, earlier on Friday at 1:00 PM Winningstad Theater. This will be followed by the first of two panel discussions featuring journalists and writers—including Paul DeBarros (Down Beat), Lloyd Peterson (Seattle) and James Hale (Ottawa)—and artists affected and influenced by Ornette’s five decades of musical exploration, including Myra Melford, Tim Berne, and members of The Bad Plus. This same group, plus other arriving artists, will reconvene at the Winningstad on Saturday, February 16, at 11:00 AM to address The Shapes of Jazz to Come—2008 & Beyond, focusing on new directions in jazz and improvised music.
The thematic series within the festival’s first weekend will conclude with a rare solo performance by Cecil Taylor, Sunday, February 17, 2:00 PM, at the Portland Marriott Waterfront, Oregon Ballroom, with the Portland duo of Rob Scheps & Glen Moore opening.Since first emerging in the mid-50’s as a kindred spirit to Coleman, Cecil Taylor has become the most advanced improviser in jazz, and five decades later he remains the most radical.
Complementing two days of The Shape of Jazz to Come, adventurous keyboardist Myra Melford, who teaches at UC Berkeley, will perform with her Be Bread Quintet on Friday, and edgy sax man Tim Berne will improvise with his acoustic trio Hardcell on Saturday.Their performances, respectively on Friday & Saturday, February 15 & 16, comprise this year’s late night concert series, beginning each night at 11:00 PM at the Winningstad Theater.
Previous Signature Series
- In 2007, PDX Jazz highlighted ECM Records, the German record label that for nearly 4 decades has made an indelible imprint on contemporary jazz.
- In 2006 was the year of Chasin' the Trane, a tribute to and study of the works and impact of John Coltrane.
- In 2005, the festival's second year and first year with a signature series, the tribute was to Jazzman Jim Pepper.