Official site of the Jazz Port Townsend jazz festival, as well as other jazz education and performance programs at Centrum, the nonprofit center for the arts at Fort Worden State Park, in Port Townsend, Washington.
We often invite a special guest or two to spice up one of the performances. This year, John asked the organist/keyboardist Larry Goldings to join us, and we're looking forward to the combo John assembled to showcase this amazing musician. Larry will be joined by the great Jeff Hamilton on drums, and the up and coming guitar virtuoso Graham Dechter. They will play Friday night, July 30 - and that is a set you won't want to miss.
The final piece of a very exciting puzzle is now in place, and the mainstage lineup for Jazz Port Townsend 2010 is complete. The latest addition is an organ trio led by B-3 master Larry Goldings, who will be joined by Port Townsend veteran and perennial favorite Jeff Hamilton on drums, plus faculty member Graham Dechter on guitar. The organ-guitar-drum combination is one of jazz’s classic sounds, and these players will carry the tradition forward with plenty of energy and hard swinging.
This set is on the Friday, July 30th concert, which begins at 7:30pm in the McCurdy Pavilion.
Click here to see the rest of Jazz Port Townsend’s mainstage lineup July 30 & 31, plus Jazz in the Clubs July 29 – 31. Tickets for all these shows are on sale to Centrum members now (a minimum $50 donation), and will be open to the general public on May 3rd.
This summer, trumpet player Ingrid Jensen returns to Jazz Port Townsend. In addition to her widely anticipated class offerings, Jensen will be giving a mainstage performance on Friday, July 30, at 7:30 pm.
I’m excited about our Jazz Port Townsend 2010 workshop in July. I want to make sure you know that registration is now open and I hope you’re planning on joining us. It would be awesome if you could be there. We’ve put together a great faculty, with a combination of old and new friends. You can check out the link here to get started, and see the list of faculty here.
As always, we ask you to submit an audition recording. Please move on this now so that you are in time to meet to meet the April 16 deadline. This is especially important for pianists, since we always fill up on that instrument early. Please review our audition information, and start practicing (“performing,” right?!) now.
I also want to make sure you know about two other workshops at Centrum this spring. There will be a Latin Jazz Intensive workshop (paired with a Salsa Dance Intensive) March 18-21 with Oscar and Paulo Stagnaro, and a Choro Intensive April 22-25 with Mike Marshall and Choro Famoso. Both are excellent ways to expand your musicianship and learn from amazing faculty, and make great music yourself.
Also coming up October 28-31 will be our second Big Band Intensive. The 2009 workshop was an instant hit. We’re planning to have two full bands this time.
So, my friends, you have lots of opportunities to build on your musicianship. I hope you’ll take advantage of as many of these as you can. Program Manager Gregg Miller (gregg@centrum.org) will be glad to answer any questions you may have. I hope to see you in July at Jazz Port Townsend, or at one of the other workshops.
In addition to returning faculty luminaries such as Benny Green, Terell
Stafford, George Cables, Wycliffe Gordon and Jeff Clayton, there are
several new faculty this year we're very excited about.
These include
the Heath Brothers Quartet (Jimmy and Tootie Heath, Jeb Patton and
David Wong), Butch Miles (drums), Byron Stripling (trumpet), Ben Wolfe
(bass), Christine Jensen (alto), Rene Marie (vocal), and Ellen Rowe
(piano/composition).
Just a quick note to let you know that we will begin accepting registrations for the 2010 Jazz Port Townsend workshop in the next few days. We will be publishing new faculty information, and giving you all of the registration information you will need to join John Clayton and the rest of "the family" here at Fort Worden in July 2010.
Our 2009 Big Band workshop in September was a big success! John Clayton, together with Jay Thomas and Bill Ramsay, led 18 musicians in 3 days of intensive rehearsals and discussions. The repertoire featured a number of John's compositions and arrangements, seasoned with a couple of classics from the Count Basie library.
As Basie alumni, John and Bill felt right at home, and Jay was the rock of the sax section in the first tenor chair. The weekend was capped by a sold-out concert in the Wheeler Theater, which ended with the audience leaping to its feet and shouting for more.
We'll definitely do another big band workshop in 2010, only next time with two bands! The dates will be announced soon.
Don't forget - we're hosting an amazing Jazz Improvisation workshop in a few weeks with the great Geoffrey Keezer. We have a few spaces left in this intensive workshop - sign up today - we promise you'll have a great time, and learn a lot.
Alvester Garnett (drums), Chuck Deardorf (bass), and Randy Porter (piano) lead a 2009 Jazz Port Townsend workshop session on African and Latin rhythms.
At the 2:00 minute mark, they break into music. Check it out.
To purchase tickets to the public performance component of Jazz Port Townsend, visit our performance page - we look forward to seeing you at the shows.
Peterson (who passed away shortly before Christmas in 2007) was one jazz's most influential
pianists.
His studio and live partners comprised a roll call of legends,
including Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis
Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Stan Getz.
But his musical journey with Benny Green is special.
"I was blessed to be befriended by Oscar in the fall of 1992, when he
came to hear the trio led by the late, great master of the bass, Ray
Brown, in Toronto. At the time, I was playing piano in Ray’s trio and
Jeff Hamilton was the drummer. Oscar was quite supportive of me after
hearing us play, and he encouraged a friendship, inviting me to
telephone or write him."
In 1993, Peterson won the prestigious Glenn Gould prize - an international award given every three years to an individual in recognition of their contributions to music and communication. At that time took the unusual step of publicly announcing his choice for protégé. He chose Benny Green.
The two pianists first performed together in 1996 at a gala Town Hall concert in honor of Peterson. The New York Times
said of that first musical meeting, “The bejeweled blues sensibility of
the 71-year old pianist was evident in the younger as they traded
sections of melody lines and choruses...”
The two went on to record Oscar and Benny in 1998. For these sessions, Peterson and Green selected a number of standards, exploring
a wide variety of moods and styles. In addition, in the final number,
“Barbara’s Blues, the rhythm section sits out while Peterson and Green
present a dazzling two-piano tapestry. Oscar and Benny features the two pianists celebrating their mutual admiration and musical bond with eloquence and infectious joy.
We hope you can join us on Saturday afternoon, for what we are sure will be an amazing tribute to Oscar Peterson.
Artistic Director John Clayton was kind enough to take a few moments and share his thoughts about a few of our Festival performers and teachers. Many of you have been viewing these on the faculty bio pages. However, as we get closer to the Festival performances, we'll be posting these here on the main page, as well.
