Oregon Music News

From the Artichoke Music Café…and it’s a good feeling to say that again….I am sitting across from Paul Ward, the new Artichoke Executive Director and Board Chair. He’s been on the job for a matter of weeks but he’s full of ideas and has experience in both music, he’s a pianist, and business with multiple degrees and an excellent track record in running companies. Bob Howard, who just retired from Paul’s job maneuvered Artichoke through the pandemic and now it’s up to Paul to take the next steps. He’s on the job. Meet Paul Ward.

Coffeeshop Conversations has returned to the Artichoke Music Café and it’s great to be back and just as great to be sitting across from Reggie Houston, saxophonist, vocalist and composer who moved back home to New Orleans a few years back but is making a visit to Portland in anticipation of moving back to his adopted home. We’ve missed him, his music and his spirit. He is a fountain of knowledge, memories and good will, as you might remember from previous appearances on this podcast when he talked about being in Fats Domino’s band, about Dave Bartholomew and lots and lots and lots of things like that. He was showing me pictures and just listen to the names of the people in the picture when I turned on the recorder.

Over the years of this podcast…eight to be exact…one of our favorite guests has been OMN’s National Editor Art Levine. He’s a journalist with international cred. His book Mental Health Inc is a very serious work. He has been an editor at the Washington Monthly and has written very funny pieces for National Lampoon, among many others. We always have fun when he’s on this podcast. We’re going to talk about the best interviews we’ve ever done including James Brown, Ruth Brown, Leon Redbone, Hank Ballard, Storm Large and many others. It’s always fun to talk to Art. We’ve been friends for fifty years. That’s scary.

Just a few more weeks until we’re back in the Artichoke Music Café. The podcast which goes up on August 19 with Reggie Houston, fresh from New Orleans will mark our return home to Artichoke. The 19th also marks the start of the three day Montavilla Jazz Festival, and as we always do, joining me electronically to talk about the full lineup is one of its curators, specifically Program Director, guitarist/composer Ryan Meagher. Ryan and I are also big baseball fans but we’ll save that until I shut off the recorder. Montavilla exists on its own but is greatly influenced in subjects and aims of the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble. Therefore, here’s the non-baseball part of my conversation with Ryan Meagher.

Welcome back to not the Artichoke Music Café. We’ll be back there on August 18 and talking with Reggie Houston who will obviously be in Portland. Today I am officially ending further discussion of what did you do during the pandemic. I’m about to talk with singer/pianist/composer Rachel Taylor-Brown, one of my favorite musicians on earth. We should consider ourselves lucky to hear what she has to say because she doesn’t do a whole lot of interviews. This being a conversation makes it different but not by much. No, she doesn’t have a new album to push and that’s fine. She does have a lot of new songs which are not ready for us to hear, but she’s ready to tell us about them. I’m calling her now.

I’m counting the days until I am recovered from the back surgery and can get to the Artichoke Café and sit across the table from our podcast guest. That will be on August 16 and it will also mark the return to Portland (for a visit) by Reggie Houston who moved back to New Orleans a couple of years ago. Today marks a Skype return to Portland by Jazz guitarist/composer Margaret Slovak who has had an odyssey which includes eight surgeries on her hand arm and shoulder. She has a new album called Ballad for Brad. Brad being her husband. Title track included here. They live in Austin, Texas. It’s a long journey and it’s not over. Welcome back Margaret Slovak.

Hey. I have recovered enough from back surgery to make it over to my desk and start a whole new round of Coffeeshop Conversations episodes via Skype and other methods. I hope to be sitting in the Artichoke Café in another month. I said hope to. I know that today our guest is Bobby Smith, XRAY radio DJ (and he’ll make some news about that). He’s archivist for the Albina Music Trust who, along with World Arts Foundation will be presenting a series of concerts and discussions and spoken word events all over town this summer. They’re calling it Summer of Sound. It's a celebration of Portland’s Black music…past and present. We’ll find out all about that and all of Bobby’s fine work. Meet Bobby Smith.

The Waterfront Blues Festival is right around the corner…the Fourth of July weekend, as you know. Over the years, OMN has given you inside looks at how it runs, besides keeping you informed about the musicians. Today Louis Pain is here, or King Louie as he likes to be known. We all know he’s a master of the Hammond B-3, but did you know he has a thriving business renting them…including at the Blues Festival. You’ll see two of them this year. He’ll be playing, of course, but so will any other musician who needs one. We’ll take a medium deep dive into those strange creatures, the organs not the organists and hear about the time another musician messed with one that Booker T was going to play. Here’s Louis Pain.

Regular listeners to this podcast, and even irregular listeners may or may not remember that for the past few weeks I’ve invited some of my favorite guests to come to the Artichoke Café while I have a window between surgeries. I’ll still make episodes, but for a little while they’ll be via Skype or something like it. Today I am happy to have Ramsey Embick here with me. You may know him from his Jazz piano playing and composing and his Soul and Latin piano playing and composing. He spent a long time in Los Angeles where he worked with dozens of people you’ve heard of including the Pointer Sisters…even Michael Jackson. I want to ask him a million questions about that and other things because he’s always clever and quirky. Welcome back Ramsey Embick.

Returning to the Artichoke Music Café with me today is Third Angle New Music Artistic Director, flutist Sarah Tiedemann, a Coffeeshop Conversations favorite. The 22-23 season has been announced and Sarah is going to tell us all about what looks to be a very exciting musical experience for everyone…musicians and listeners. After a couple of years of the pandemic, you might say this is the first year she’s been able to spread her wings and put her stamp on all things Third Angle. Everything from the Spruce Goose to music to be played to a 1930’s silent Chinese movie. Let’s find out about the whole season from Sarah Tiedemann.

Pretty Gritty, a duo featuring Sarah Anne Wolfe and Blaine Heinonen has been around since they moved to Portland from the D.C. area twelve years ago. Now Sarah is moving to the East Coast and Blaine is staying put, putting at least a temporary end to the collaboration. Maybe, maybe not. Their farewell concert is Saturday, May 28 at Artichoke Music in the Café which is where I’m about to talk with them.

We’re still back at the Artichoke Music Café this week for a special occasion, the final day as Executive Director for Bob Howard. He’s retiring, there is a new head honcho in charge, his name is Paul K Ward. Bob shepherded Artichoke’s move from Hawthorne to Powell Boulevard and guided it through the pandemic. Not an easy job. The café is crowded today. Bob refers to several of the people here without telling us who they are. That’s ok, we recorded this last Tuesday and by now he’s in Paris. That’s France. Let’s say farewell to Bob Howard.

We are back at the Café at Artichoke Music with one of our favorite guests. And while I have this window of a month or so to be here and not on Skype before my next surgery, I’m bringing back some folks who have made great guests. Today it’s Lloyd Jones, singer, composer, guitarist and a guy who is full of great stories from a very long and productive career that’s still going strong. I see he has brought a guitar with him, so that’s something else to look forward to. So what we’ve got today is basically a hang. And you’re invited. I’ve got a cup of coffee here, so let’s say hi to Lloyd Jones.

For the first time since December, I am back at Artichoke Music in their Café. I had surgery in January…which worked and I did a few months in Skype prison. I have a new and different surgery in about a month and we’ll go back to Skype then until I heal, but for the next few weeks, it’s GREAT to be back and talking to people in person across a table, coffee in hand. Today I am very happy to have Meg with me. You know her as Meg Samples on KMHD and also as drummer and new Executive Director of Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble under the name of Meg Morrow. She took the PJCE gig not long ago and is busy making her mark. We’ll find out what that might be and ask her if she knows any drummer jokes. Meet…well, Meg.

Ever get the feeling that everyone you see has a podcast? Seems that way. Most of them last a few episodes and run out of steam. Some have been around long enough to re-imagine themselves and what they’re about. Gritty Birds is one like that. Our guest today makes that podcast. Her name is Jeni Wren Stottrup. You may also know her as a singer and composer Jeni Wren. She also operates the Podcast Forum and assumes her role as a podcast coach. We’ll find out all about all of those roles and where the name Gritty Birds came from. Jeni has been through a lot in the past couple of years, as we all have. Find out what she’s found on the other side.

Every year for years and years around this time, we’ve had the Waterfront Blues Festival Artistic Director Peter Dammann let us know who’s playing even though it’s April and the festival isn’t until the fourth of July weekend. The big news is that after not having a festival in 2020 and having a truncated festival held at Zidell Yards in 2021 the festival will return, all four stages of it, to it’s normal location at the…well, the Waterfront. Peter will run down all of the headliners and some of the locals as he has not yet booked all of our friends and neigbors. OMN will be there, no booth this year but lots of photographers and writers to bring you the flavor of the weekend. Right now, get ready to hear who’s playing…straight from the curator’s mouth…..Peter Dammann.

You probably know Evan Shlaes one of two ways (or both); as a member of the New Iberians, a New Orleans Cajon/Zydeco band around here for decades. Or you know him as the proprietor of Real Good Stuff a store spectacularly full, and I mean FULL of musical things, furniture, curios…you know real good stuff. The store was destroyed in a fire late last year and because the Portland music community takes care of its own, he found a new store, stocked it and opened for business two months after the fire. The band is back gigging again too. Pretty amazing, but not for him and not for Portland’s music community.He’s in the store right now. Let’s talk with Evan Shlaes.

Shawn Levy is back on the podcast. Every time he’s got a new book out, he’s kind enough to stop by and talk to us about it. Last tine it was his book of poems based on New York Times obituaries. Before that his best seller on Chateau Marmont. And before that Dolce Vita Confidential. This one is called “In on the Joke.” It’s about female comedians, not today’s but the first female standups, from Moms Mabley to Joan Rivers, including Phyllis Diller, Elaine May and many others. We’ll find out what joke they were in on and discover the real people behind the public personalities. He’ll be reading at Powell’s City of Books in Portland on Wednesday, April 6. It’s always a joy to have Shawn visit the podcast.

Maria Muldaur is our guest on Coffeeshop Conversations this week. She will be in Oregon for two upcoming shows; in Eugene at WOW Hall on Friday, April 8 and a sold-out show in Nehalem the next night. Right now she’s in Mill Valley, California. Don’t you dare call her a one-hit-wonder because she has been lending her voice to her own band and dozens of other groups for a long long time. Next week, our guest will be writer Shawn Levy on his upcoming book on female comedians from Moms Mabley to Joan Rivers. But right now let’s talk to the lively and enthusiastic Maria Muldaur.

INESSA REPEAT #15 INTRO We’re taking a pause this week to remember an important and beloved part of Oregon’s music community. On March 9th Inessa Anderson passed away, three weeks after her husband Wayne also left us. She possessed the most beautiful radio voice I have ever heard. She was a kind and insightful interviewer. Her Inessablog was a staple for those who wanted in-depth conversations. We were proud to also run it on OMN. You knew her from KGON, KINK, Portland Radio Project and several other stations. We knew her as a lovely person. In this Coffeeshop Conversation from March of 2015, I was just getting to know her and we swapped radio stories. I wish I had talked less.