Downtown Tacoma Blues And Jazz Festival 2025

Downtown Tacoma Blues and Jazz Festival
Tacoma, Washington
August 24, 2025

.Tacoma, Washington held its first annual Downtown Tacoma Blues and Jazz Festival on August 24, 2025, with a first-class lineup of new blues players, veterans and some in between. And it was free. For each band, the leader's name doubled as the band's name. Not surprisingly, then, it was a day of big voices, belting the blues from many different angles. The city closed two blocks in its central business district. The street was a narrow one with high-rises on each side, which gave the venue a true urban flair.

Chris O'Leary Band

Chris O'Leary has been issuing recordings since 2011, but in 2024, he released his first album on Alligator Records, one of the most prominent labels in the blues business. That album, The Hard Line (Alligator, 2024), showcased his authoritative vocals and gritty harmonica playing. Sunday afternoon, all that came through, along with a sense of humor, all in service of some high-energy blues rock.

O'Leary spent seven years as vocalist with Levon Helm of The Band fame, so it was fitting that the band covered Helm's "Ophelia." Many of the other tunes were O'Leary originals, often telling first-hand stories of hard times. One of those was a song about theft asking, "Who Robs a Musician?" Another dealt with divorce, his. Actually, this song was more of a celebration, "You Break It, You Bought It." Another O'Leary original told the bizarre story of "Live Baby Gators."

O'Leary's band was highly polished, due, in part, to its relentless touring schedule. On Sunday, O'Leary was joined by bass, drums, guitar and keyboards. The guitarist and keyboardist consistently laid down tasty and compelling solos, and O'Leary's harp playing added an authentic bluesy flavor.

The festival organizers set up two stages along Broadway in downtown Tacoma. The array allowed a set change on one stage while the other hosted some fine blues. As a result, the music was non-stop, requiring only a 3/4 block stroll between stages to keep up with the action.

The format also allowed for mingling with the performers and between performers. Rick Estrin and his band, the Nightcats, had performed the night before and he was in the audience for most of the performances. Most of the other musicians hung around for at least part of the sets by their colleagues.

John Primer and the Real Deal Blues Band

As the name of his band says, this is the real deal. Specifically, this is the real deal for electric Chicago-style blues. John Primer has the pedigree. He was band leader and lead guitarist for Junior Wells and Sammy Lawhorn. He has also played with Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Johnny Winter, Derek Trucks, the The Rolling Stones, Buddy Guy and Magic Slim and the Teardrops, among others.

Primer, now 80 years old, played like a man with something to say. He laid out his guitar solos with measured precision and his vocals displayed his lifetime of playing the blues, starting in Mississippi, where he grew up, and then Chicago, where he moved when he was 18.

Primer appeared with a four-piece band. He had a drummer, bassist and full-time harmonica player to back his vocals and guitar playing. Primer has been on a recording roll lately, releasing six albums in the last three years. Sunday afternoon, he performed some of the songs from those recent albums, including "Look Over Yonder Wall," from Teardrops for Magic Slim, Live at Rosa's Lounge (Blues House Productions, 2023) and "Nothin' But a Chicken Wing" from Grown in Mississippi (Blues House Productions, 2025).

Primer and band also covered some well-known blues tunes such as "I Can't Be Satisfied" and even "Rainy Night in Georgia," which may or may not be a blues tune, but it sounded good, nonetheless.

Direct connections to some of the early blues masters, such as Muddy Waters and Junior Wells, are becoming increasingly rare. Primer is one of those bluesmen and the blues scene is a better place because of him.

Marcel Smith featuring D'Mar

Singer Marcellino Smith brought the soul side of the blues to Tacoma Sunday afternoon. It was a fun contrast to John Primer's gritty electric Chicago blues. Smith's version of the blues is more along the lines of Little Milton and the more soulful side of Bobby Blue Bland, with some classic r&b thrown in. While he sounded like a crooner on some of his slower songs, make no mistake, Smith can belt out the blues with the best.

Smith is from California, first Sacramento and now Stockton. At 60 years old, he has been in and around the music business for several decades, singing and playing do wop, gospel, r&b, soul and blues. He has two albums under his own name, Everybody Needs Love (Little Village Foundation, 2018) and From My Soul (Little Village Foundation, 2023).

For his Tacoma appearance, he brought a four-piece band: bass, drums, guitar and keyboards. He also had two backing singers who came and went during the set. He also had a special guest guitarist in Kid Andersen Andersen is the guitarist with Rick Estrin and the Nightcats. Andersen is also the proprietor of Greaseland Studios in San Jose, California, where he is a prolific producer. Andersen has produced several of Smith's recordings. Smith has also worked with Estrin over the years.

Smith exposed his rhythm and blues roots with a couple of classics. "Part Time Love," from 1963, was first recorded by Little Johnny Taylor and later by Ann Peebles and Isaac Hayes. The very danceable "Drunk" was another r&b hit, this one by Jimmy Liggins in 1953. He also performed songs from his own albums, including "Turn Back the Hands of Time" from From My Soul and the title track from Everybody Needs Love.

Smith spent most of his set in front of the stage and not on it. That may have been because the stage was too small for all the musicians (and Kid Andersen is a big guy!), but it was mainly because Smith clearly enjoys interacting with the audience. He also needs a large stretch of real estate to prowl during his performance.

Smith's act was billed as "Marcel Smith featuring D'Mar." D'Mar (a/k/a Derrick Martin) turned out to be the drummer. And speaking of prowling and audience interaction, D'Mar took his turn at those tricks toward the end of the set, leaping over his drums and then off the stage to turn various objects such as posts and chairs into percussion instruments.

In his white linen suit, Smith may have been the best-dressed performer at the festival, although Danielle Nicole gave him a run for the money in that department.

D.K. Harrell

Every once in a while, a new blues musician hits the scene and almost immediately, you realize, "This guy's GOT IT!" That's what happens by about the third song when listening to D.K. Harrell's debut release on Alligator Records, Talkin' Heavy (Alligator, 2025). In concert, Harrell matches his authoritative voice and stellar guitar playing with the showmanship of a veteran.

The 26-year-old Harrell has been garnering attention from blues fans nationwide. Some rate him as the best new bluesman to hit the scene since Christone "Kingfish" Ingram. He also draws regular comparisons to B.B. King. Indeed, all of those accolades seem justified, given his silky voice and fluid guitar playing. Add to that songwriting that ranges from witty to soul-baring, and he is the full package.

Harrell brought the only horn section to the festival with a tenor saxophonist and a trumpeter. They added a punch to the arranged parts and provided additional improvisational ideas during their solos. The Harrell band also featured bass, drums and keyboards. Several of the band members also sang, putting on harmony vocals on several tunes.

Harrell is a natural storyteller. He explained the details behind many of the songs the band performed. He also said his manager (who was in the audience) sometimes gets on him for talking so much, but he pointed out to his manager that his paycheck is the same size, regardless of how much Harrell talks. So he will keep telling stories.

One of the stories he related was about his father, whom he described as an alcoholic and completely unsupportive of his hopes and dreams of making it in the music business. Harrell spoke of how he was homeless as recently as three years ago, and his father refused to help him. He apologized in advance before starting the song, saying he might get emotional as he sang. He made it through the song in one piece, but that might not have been true for everyone in the audience after that introduction. The song: "No Thanks To You."

That song is on Talkin' Heavy, as were several others in his set, including "Vibe With Me" which was a slow burner. The more up-tempo "Grown Now" was the first single off that album. Others were "What Real Men Do" and "Into the Room." He also dipped into his prior album, The Right Man (Little Village Foundation, 2023), with "Not Here For a Long Time (But Here For A Good Time)." Although the albums are on different labels, they were both produced by Kid Andersen, who was in the audience during the set.

Toward the end of the show, Harrell came out into the audience. The festival had an area cordoned off for the VIP section. VIP access required purchasing a ticket, whereas the rest of us attended for free. Harrell spent a little time with the VIPs, but quickly broke through the barriers to join the common folk, explaining that the non-VIPs were "his people." He danced with a dozen or so non-VIP women and even John Primer, who was at that merch booth.

Danielle Nicole

Danielle Nicole plays bass and sings. She really sings. She puts so much energy and raw emotion into her vocals that it is easy to worry about not just her emotional, but also her physical well-being. She has been singing like this for at least a couple of decades, so it is safe to assume she has figured out how to recover from a performance like this.

Danielle Nicole a/k/a Danielle Nicole Schnebelen first came to prominence with the band Trampled Under Foot, featuring her brother Nick on guitar and vocals and her brother Kris on drums. She went on her own about 10 years ago and has released three studio albums during that time.

In Tacoma on Sunday, she brought a trio, emulating the Trampled Under Foot instrumentation. Brandon Miller played guitar and sang background vocals and Kelsey Cook played drums. Nicole sings with the power of Susan Tedeschi, but the trio format shines the spotlight on Nicole even more intensely than Tedeschi, who gets plenty of mic time with the Tedeschi Trucks Band, but still has to share attention with eleven other musicians.

The setlist drew heavily from Nicole's three albums, with a few covers thrown in. She told a story of going to a gritty nightclub with her dad in her hometown of Kansas City when she was very young. The experience yielded the song "Wolf Den," also the title track of her first album in 2015 on Concord Records. Other than the covers, the songs in the setlist came from her other two albums. "Pusher Man," "I'm Going Home," "Cry No More" and "Save Me" came from Cry No More (Concord Records, 2018) and "How Did We Get to Goodbye," "Love on My Brain" and "Fools Gold" are on The Love You Bleed (Forty Below Records, 2024).

A highlight of the set was her cover of "Damn Your Eyes," a hit for Etta James in 1988 and covered by many others since then. On this one, Nicole raged—she knows she must leave her lover. He is no good for her, but she is in love and cannot leave. She is mad. At him for making her fall in love with him. She is mad. At herself for being unable to resist his spell. Saturday afternoon, all those confused and visceral emotions poured out in a barely controlled fury. It was an emotionally draining performance—for both Nicole and the audience. After baring her soul, she took a break to give both sides of the stage a chance to recover. Miller took over and wailed on a guitar solo for six or seven minutes.

She returned to the stage for "Save Me," a song from Cry No More. For the finale, she selected a venue-appropriate cover in Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City."

The promoters announced during the show that they will be back next year for the second annual festival at the end of August. Free blues with a lineup like this is a winning combination.

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