MUSIC AND MEMORY

Music doesn’t live in a vacuum. It comments on what came before, even if it’s impatient to create something new.

Audiences bring their own memories, too. The first jazz album they heard, crackling on the record player or streaming into their earbuds. The first jazz club they visited, with smelly air, greasy carpets, and mind-blowing musicians on the stage. The first time they played the blues scale in high school and it sounded, actually, good.

Jazz is American, precisely because everything about it is part of the gumbo of our past. Classical European music met up with Cuban street musicians in New Orleans. Jazz drummers’ brushes and mutes in trumpets were the answer to playing in speak-easies during Prohibition. The style, art, and politics of the Harlem Renaissance must be remembered for how African-American high society developed a voice, built self-confidence, and connected America’s biggest city with the world’s conversation about art and humanity.

Portland will never wear its hipness too heavily. We’ve got to move, shift, change with the times. Because, even though we comment on what came before, we are impatient to create something new.

MAKING THE SCENE

To make a scene, we have to make music, make an effort to get audiences into venues, and get venues on-board with tools that build their profits.

Portland’s jazz musicians are part of an improvised music scene here in thrash metal, indie, hip hop, and other genres. Even the DJ scene is incredibly inventive.

Audiences love it. They love us. They love going out to clubs and restaurants to support us.

We want that scene to grow. That means we need to support venues. We need simple tools to get audiences excited, get them to show up, and get venues to help out. Simply. Effectively. With provable results.

That’s why we’re here.

Why only twelve? Twelve of the right musicians can make a huge difference by using their talent and willingness to give back to their community. We are large enough of a group to make our offering to audiences and venues rich and meaningful, but not so large that we’re sluggish.

We hear the count-off on this project, and the tempo is fast.