2009 is complete and the reviews are in. Photos from each day are available. Here are the reviews:
The Complete 2009 Festival
Josef Woodard reflects on the festivals first weekend for JazzTimes.com
“[The Festival] marshaled high spirits and stubborn optimism. It is a festival-one that has done all the right things and taken a rightful place high in the ranks of American festivals-that almost got away.”
The Full Review Read the rest of this entry »
Barry Johnson for The Oregonian
The great pianist McCoy Tyner sat erect at his piano during his Portland Jazz festival performance, and to me he looked like the great hawk of jazz — almost fierce, brow slightly furrowed, eyes darting from keyboard to his quartet, master of this universe.
At one point, drummer Eric Kamau Gravatt finished a solo in “Angelina” and began to reintegrate into the song through an exchange with Tyner. Suddenly, Gravatt laughed and shrugged at Tyner, which made Tyner chuckle. And then dig in. Because, to my eyes anyway, they had found themselves in a tricky spot, with a musical problem maybe only they understood, and Tyner was going to have to figure it out.
Luciana Lopez, for OregonLive
Kurt Elling had some mighty big shoes to fill Sunday night: He was paying tribute to the 1963 ballads album “John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman,” which, though only clocking in around half an hour, has been considered a classic for its more than four decade. Both Coltrane and Hartman were in superb form on the record.
But Elling’s not exactly chopped liver, either. He’s proven it in previous Portland Jazz Festival appearances, and he proved it again Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »
Marc Wheeler blogs for Gradu
“Today marks the end of the Portland Jazz Festival. I was lucky to catch three separate shows. I feel especially lucky to have seen some of jazz’s elder statesmen: McCoy Tyner, Lou Donaldson, and Bobby Hutcherson. All three of these men played during the height of jazz in the post-bebop era. And all three of them are still playing, whether they want to be or not.
I was impressed by how much chops each of these men still had. Tyner still had his feather-like touch on the keys. Lou Donaldson still had a sweet, sweet sound on the alto-sax, probably sweeter than it was in the 1950s and 60s. I am always amazed when I see someone use their mallets on the vibes to pound out lines of eighteenth notes. Watching Hutcherson do this at his age of 67 was impressive.
by Luciana Lopez, The Oregonian
Sure, there were fewer headline shows this weekend, the second and final of the 10-day Portland Jazz Festival. But while the pace may have been less hectic than last weekend, the shows themselves were top-notch: the pairing of Lou Donaldson and Bobby Hutcherson in the afternoon and Aaron Parks and Patricia Barber in the evening.
Personality-wise, Donaldson and Hutcherson presented sharp contrasts. The saxophonist, Donaldson, was gregarious, opinionated, funny. He managed to diss everyone from Bush to Miles Davis to 50 Cent (“not worth a quarter”). Hutcherson, in contrast, seldom spoke. Whatever he thought about, well, anything was his business and his alone.
More 2009 Alaska Airlines Portland Jazz Festival News -->
