Christmas Ship Parade of Lights

In December each year, a somewhat organized group of boaters decorates their boats with string lights and then parades up and down the Willamette River after dark along Portland’s waterfront several evenings a week. I was in a jazz trio that was hired to play for a birthday party on a boat that was going to join the flotilla for an…

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The Roof Top Gig

It was the 4th of July, and I was booked with a 12-piece band, The Natural Gas Co., to play on the roof of the old brick Yamhill-Market building downtown. This was before everyone had cell phones.

The load-in instructions involved an interior loading dock off an active street and a freight elevator used by a busy restaurant. Load-in wasn’t to be…

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Excerpts from a musician’s inbox; December 2017

The Powers that Be here at ... have put together a run of show that isn’t what was initially discussed at all.

..the theme is speakeasy lite – touches of Rose Rabbit Lye and Absinth (Vegas show) so I figure anything jazzy, sexy, dark, mysterious – with a little Christmas thrown in.

All of you are playing in the foyer (typically the main…

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Breaking into Retail

Michelle, the Special Events Manager for a major, upscale, multi-location clothing and accessories retailer (aka Department Store) wanted to have more live music at the store’s events. One of the stores’ General Managers (GM) wasn’t about to let it happen on his watch, especially not if drums were involved in any way. Michelle was determined though, so she booked my trio of vibes, bass,…

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Gig of the Vanishing Bass Player

We were booked to play at a summertime jazz festival and our trio was doing a pre-event in an old movie theater that was undergoing some renovations. It was a turn-of-the-previous-century building that had been a community theater, so it still had an old stage with hardwood floors. Nearly all of the stage lighting had been removed as part of…

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Transit Elevator Gig

We were playing background music for the grand opening of a new transit elevator that takes people from an underground city train tunnel up to a parking lot near the entrance of the Zoo, Arboretum, Forestry Center, and a museum. It was a perfect star-lit August night and our jazz quartet was set up in the corner of some concrete…

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