Jazz Port Townsend 2004

After opening with a bristling reading of Gigi Gryce's hard bop burner, "Minority", Shank and Woods took turns re-shaping a series of jazz standards and originals including a lyrical suite of Bill Evans-inspired tunes. Shank offered an achingly beautiful reading of "Nature Boy" before the dual alto-driven quintet drilled the set to a standing ovation.
Then Shank came out alone, sat down, and opened a long, seething, emotional rant directed at the Centrum arts organizers who took away his artistic director position last spring after more than 20 years of guiding the Bud Shank Jazz Workshop and Jazz Port Townsend.
"They fired me," Shank fumed, and continued his tirade before the stunned, silent, full house by describing how for two decades he'd played every concert and club stage for free during the festival, taking payment only for his dual roles as clinician and artistic director. He said his famous friends who served as clinicians always played for free too, citing the George Cables Trio's club date that night as an example. Then he brought his wife Linda out, and she continued the emotional complaint after Bud promised "We'll never come back to Port Townsend."
It was awful, like witnessing a very messy domestic break-up's dirty laundry, and I hurried back downtown to the American Legion Hall for a dose of the Alan Jones Sextet's playful, powerful original music. The barefoot drummer's band is one of my favorites. The Portland-based sextet was joined by tenor saxophonist Phil Dwyer for their Port Townsend performances, and Dwyer's ferocious attack and brilliantly conceived improvisations perfectly mirrored the leader's volcanic drumming. Newly returned to the west coast after a decade toiling in Toronto's busy studio scene, Dwyer was on fire.

The sextet opened with a fevered reading of Wayne Shorter's "Oriental Folk Tune" followed by a series of originals dedicated to Jones' mentor, Leroy Vinegar, and the drummer's passion for rock climbing and high altitude mountaineering. Trumpeter Phil Mazzio and alto saxophonist Warren Rand ably shared the front line with Dwyer, and pianist Randy Porter and bassist Tim Wakeling helped Jones propel the set's adventurous rhythmic underpinning. What a band! Sadly, Jones is moving his family to Germany, and that's a huge loss to the Pacific Northwest's jazz scene.

I wrapped up Saturday evening with the George Cables Trio at the Upstage. The bar was packed, and the kitchen was still open. They put together a deliciously garlicy lamb sandwich and salad, and I sat at the bar savoring my midnight snack while Cables, bassist John Clayton and drummer Victor Lewis produced elegantly funky reinventions of Monk and a luscious version of "Over The Rainbow". It was a wonderful, nostalgic, romantic, healing balm for the night's earlier dramatics and another reminder of why I love this festival so much.

The festival had kicked-off inauspiciously Thursday night with a truncated, opening night club offering. I started my evening with the Bill Ramsay/Ron Eschete Quintet's bluesy swinging at the Public House. Leaving the packed pub after one set and walking down Water Street to the Water Street Brewing Company's high-ceilinged bar, I caught a set by the Dawn Clement Trio with Laura Welland. Clement and her rhythm team of bassist Doug Miller and drummer John Bishop were an intuitive combo that swung relentlessly. Welland's stiff body language onstage mirrored her uninspired vocals. She felt emotionally blocked despite her technique and the band's prodding.

Friday night's main stage performance by the Buster Williams Quartet, Something More, was a hit and miss affair too. Drummer Lenny White is fusion-bred pounder and his percussive bombast was matched by pianist Patrice Rushen's keyboard bashing. Young tenor saxophonist Casey Benjamin got most of the solo space, and his Coltrane-inspired modal runs were full of rote sound and fury signifying nothing...which left Williams' deep, majestic rumblings buried in the maelstrom of his too-similar original tunes.

Ingrid Jensen/Bob Florence Quartet were much more interesting at the club date later Friday night at Khu Larb Thai Restaurant. Jensen's sensuous-but-tough trumpet and flugelhorn abstractions were a perfect sweet-and-sour marriage to Florence's weird, angular keyboard musings, and the restaurant's spicy prawn entrée was as scrumptious as the fiery jazz.

At Water Street Brewing Company Friday night, Miller and Bishop were joined by New Stories band mate Marc Seales. Their seamless rhythms provided a shifting, tightrope for veteran trombonist Jiggs Whigham and trumpeter Bobby Shew. Shew's brilliant conceptions and chops remain one of jazz music's most underrated gifts. Every note is so thoughtful, well placed, and juicy.

Saturday afternoon's main stage highlight was the music of New York-base Brazilians, Luciana Souza and Romero Lubambo. Veteran Canadian trombonist Ian McDougall's Sextet with special guest Campbell Ryga opened the afternoon with a polished, tightly arranged set featuring McDougall's buttery tone and Ryga and tenor saxophonist Ross Taggart's succinct solos, but Souza and Lubambo took it to another level.

Lubambo's exquisitely fluid guitar provided orchestral frameworks for the riveting, charismatic Souza's Portugese flights of vocal magic. An underpinning of percolating Brazilian rhythms bubbled below the singer's inspired readings, and when she backed herself on a tiny thumb piano while uncorking a gorgeous English language reading of Pablo Neruda's "Sonnet 49" she garnered a well-earned standing ovation.

The Festival All Star Big Band under Bob Florence's direction wrapped-up Saturday afternoon's offerings. Stocked with veteran clinicians and driven relentlessly by drummer Gary Hobbs, the band navigated Florence's tricky charts with good humor. Ingrid Jensen provided some standout solos and the musicians managed to make all that black ink swing.

Bill Ramsay organized a classy, little big band to back Ernestine Anderson's main stage performance Saturday night.

Opening the evening for the Phil Woods/Bud Shank Quintet's festival-closing fireworks, Anderson followed her blues muse through a set of reinvented standards, culminating with her dramatic reading of "Never Make Your Move Too Soon". Then Bud went off, and we'll all have to wait and see how Jazz Port Townsend shakes down next year. The organizers said that they wanted change. It's going to be interesting to see what changes a new artistic director brings to a festival noted for its tight-knit, familial atmosphere. For over two decades it's been an oasis of mainstream jazz. Let's hope that doesn't change.

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