Beyond Category

“Nothin’ but white people and sheep,” is how one Maxville logger described the tiny town of Maxville, Oregon. Oregon's racist history is well-known, but we rarely hear from the people of color who thrived in spite of it.

FROM MAXVILLE TO VANPORT celebrates the blue-collar African American experience in 20th century Oregon with new jazz, blues, R&B with a twelve piece band and two short films. Lyricist S. Renee Mitchell, filmmaker Kalimah Abioto, composer Ezra Weiss, and vocalist Marilyn Keller illuminate unheard stories of Oregon’s black history through a live performance with the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble.

This episode, first in a series about the most ambitious project ever undertaken by the PJCE, shares some if the community input we received at events in Portland and Joseph, Oregon. More information at http://pjce.org/maxville-to-vanport/.

The Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble’s Grasshoppers Young Composers Program is now in its third year with six new students. Hear new music by these young artists March 25th, 2018 at The 1905 from 7 to 8 pm. An open composer’s jam session follows, and there’s no cover charge.

Grasshoppers 2018 was sponsored by Vino Veritas wine bar in the Montavilla neighborhood, and the Lynne Detrick Memorial Fund.

Frank Boyd's one-man show is a profane yet passionate "love letter to jazz." In this episode of Beyond Category, sponsored by Oregon Arts Watch, PJCE Executive Director Douglas Detrick interviews the show's creator, director and performer about this production staged as a live jazz radio broadcast.

Edna Vazquez joins the PJCE’s 12-piece jazz ensemble February 15th at the Old Church in Portland, February 16 at Mt Hood Community College in Gresham, and February 17th at the Columbia Center for the Arts in Hood River. If you get your ticket before they all sell out, you’ll hear the incredible passion she brings to every performance. Her energy is unforgettable, and even if you don’t speak Spanish, you’ll understand every word.

Andrew Oliver, co-founder of the PJCE, lives in London now, but back in 2008 he and a group of ambitious graduates of Portland State University staged the first concert in the group's history. Oliver didn't know what he was getting himself into, but we're glad he did.

[Andrew] I was stupid enough to make a 501(c)3 without having any idea of what I was getting into…

[Doug] Welcome to Beyond Category, from the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble. I’m Douglas Detrick.

This season, we’re celebrating a big milestone: the PJCE is turning ten. Our first concert, in January of 2008, was a grand experiment. Co-founders Andrew Oliver and Gus Slayton wanted to produce a concert of new music for their own large jazz ensemble. They were passionate about the project, but they had no idea if anyone else would care. Fortunately for all of us, it turned people did care, a lot of them. The energy from that night powered the organization through its tenuous early days, and it’s still feeding us today.

[music]

Before the organization incorporated as a 501c3, the PJCE was just a group of friends, mostly recent graduates and members of the big band at Portland State University. They ended the school year with a disappointment that pushed them to take action. I talked with Andrew Oliver, co-founder of the PJCE, from Portland while he recorded his answers in London.

[Andrew] It had to do with this big band festival in Notre Dame. We didn’t get marked that highly, because we didn’t play like a traditional big band. It was interactive big band playing...improvising, the rhythm section was really active, and the judges were like “well that was very traditional, the rhythm section didn’t support the horns very well” and blah blah blah. And Charley was kind of offended because that was his total aesthetic and he’d been working us all year to achieve that sound.

[Doug] He’s talking about Charley Gray, the director of the PSU big band.

[Andrew] There was a bit of momentum after that. We got back, and it was me and gus, and Kevin Van Geem and Kyle Williams, and we said we have this stuff to play, so why don’t we get together at the Union sometime, since that was the only big room we had access to, and play this stuff, you know. So, that happened on Canada Day… I remember it was on Canada Day because that’s the password of all the…

[Doug] I’m going to jump in here and confirm that yes, all of the passwords for the organization’s online accounts were canadaday with some number after it—canadaday1, canadaday2008 with a capital C… And yes, we’ve changed all of our passwords since then.

[Andrew] So, first of July, ok. That happened in July, the next month after graduation.

[Douglas] The idea turned into a rehearsal.

[Andrew] We just played the tunes for fun, and that was basically it. We didn’t have any other ideas. But by the autumn we had that idea that we’d do this concert. So I think we had very many rehearsals, and then I got excited as usual, and I thought “let’s do this concert!”

[Andrew] The first concert was my band and the PJCE. We had a mix of pieces, by Gus, and me, and Eric Allen, and stuff that we had written for the PSU big band that we repurposed. And then we had some other pieces. Matt Wiers wrote a piece, and John Nastos wrote a piece.

[Andrew] KMHD was very loose in those days. So you could just go in and talk. I think it was Lynn’s show, and we didn’t have any time restrictions so we just kind of went and hung out for the whole show. We were just chatting about it for an hour, between all the songs. It was unbelievable. So many people came! People came from the Oregon Coast because they heard us on there, I remember. There was some sort of incredible momentum. We had no expectations, but the place was totally packed. It just seemed at the time that all of these people showed up out of the woodwork. Whether or not the music lived up to it at the time I have no idea. I don’t think the concert was very good, it certainly wasn’t very well rehearsed. It was just all vibe, basically.

[Douglas (on tape)] Tell me about the vibe. What was it like to be there, when you think back about it now?

[Andrew] It was one of the first things I did in Portland where there seemed to be interest because of the idea. When I think back about why I was so excited about it, I think that was why. The idea behind it was what drove it, was what drove the interest and was why there was such a good atmosphere in the room.

[Douglas (on tape)] How do you think things changed over your tenure? How did you make a transition from something that was pretty informal to something that was a little bit more organized, more of a thing.

[Andrew] I guess what happened, inevitably, was that once the high of that wore off, slowly—we did a few more concerts after that, another couple of concerts at the store and at the Old Church—it was getting a bit crazy because more people were getting involved, and more people were wanting to write more complicated music, myself included. And the we still didn’t really have any money. I think as all those things began to come together, it got to a point where the balance got off. The music was too hard to perform well based on the amount of time people were willing to rehearse without getting paid.

[Andrew] It seemed easy in my mind. I didn’t realize how much of a monster it was going to be. Here’s an opportunity for us to get some more money, and that will allow us more time to rehearse and commission better music, or rehearse the music we had, or play in better venues.

[Andrew] The reason for having a large group became a challenge. At first we didn’t have to have a reason for having a large group. We just wanted to do it, so we did. And there was no reason. The reason that we wanted to have a large group changed over time. At the time when we started and even when we became a non-profit, I mean it seems naive, but I didn’t think about why we had a large group other than that we wanted to have a large group. But later on when we were trying to do more conceptual projects, I thought, damn, I wish we just had a quartet, or we could have just a quartet.

[Douglas (on tape)] Have you thought of an answer to that question now? About why it was that you guys did that, and why it was worth doing.

[Andrew] Well, I think we were just young and excited. When we started to write for large group, no of us had done it before. I mean it was really excited from a compositional standpoint, to be able to have all those voices and textures at your disposal. I still think the original reason was valid. To have a large group for the sake of writing for a large group because you enjoy is great, it’s as good as doing any thing else. It was an innocent decision. Later on this stuff came as a result of having a large group because you need more money to pay more people and this kind of thing. The decision to have a large group was just an artistic decision, which was good.

[Douglas (on tape)] I love the naivete…

[Andrew] Oh man, it would never have happened if it weren’t for that. I would never do something like this now. I would never start something like this now. At all.

[Douglas (on tape)] And I wouldn’t have either. The fact that it was already there, and there was already a 501c3 and there was already a board. Even though there was tons of work to do, to try to make it into what I would want it to be if I was going to do it. If you hadn’t started it, I wouldn’t have done it, and it wouldn’t be here now.

[Andrew] Yeah, but that’s why it’s’ good. We needed both me and you. I was stupid enough to randomly start a 501c3 without any idea of what I was getting into. But I never had the vision to make it work beyond just starting it.

[music]

[Doug] A few important ingredients came together when the PJCE began—some good luck, some support from the community, and a whole lot of youthful exuberance. The organization has changed a lot, but we’ve stayed true to mission that was established that night—new jazz music that is innovative, collaborative, and community-oriented.

[music]

Today with the PJCE, fundraising matters, ticket sales matter, budgeting and strategic planning matter. But, we still have the same twinkle in our eyes and flutter in our hearts that Andrew and his collaborators had. Those feelings guide us now just as much as they did in 2008.

This episode is going live just before the end of 2017. But no matter when you’re listening, you can take the next step from being a podcast subscriber to being a PJCE Sustainer. Yes, you too can be one of the wonderful people that support us with contributions as little as $5 a month. Do it now at pjce.org/sustain.

I’m Douglas Detrick, Executive Director and podcaster-in-chief at the Portland Jazz Composers Emsemble and you’ve been listening to Beyond Category. Music in this episode was composed by Andrew Oliver, from his PJCE Records album “Northwest Continuum” which you can purchase at pjce.bandcamp.com.

Thanks for listening.

This episode is a collection of interviews I did at the 2017 Montavilla Jazz Festival in Portland, Oregon, mostly August 20th. I talked to artists, festival leadership, and a few other members of the jazz community who helped make the event happen. And from what I heard, both in terms of the music and what people had to say about the festival, the Montavilla Jazz Festival is most definitely here to stay, and it has become an indispensable part of Portland’s jazz scene.

Jasnam Daya Singh, a pianist and composer originally from Brazil, has composed a new piece for the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble called “Ektah: The Unity Project.” When Jasnam begins a new piece of music, he begins not with a melody in mind, but with a word. This helps to give the piece a purpose, and help him focus his attention on that purpose. In this case, the word was "unity." We had a conversation about the new piece, and about how inspiration, respect, and gratitude combine with hard work in the process of writing music.

The Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble performs Jasnam Daya Singh’s “Ektah: The Unity Project” with the composer on piano 7 pm, August 16th at Roaring Rapids in Eugene, OR, and 4:20 pm August 19th at the Montavilla Jazz Festival in Portland, OR. All the details are available at our website: pjce.org.

The 4th annual Montavilla Jazz Festival is August 19th and 20th, 2017. Get all the information at montavillajazzfest.com. This year’s festival features headliner Essiet Essiet with Sylvia Cuenca, the Rich Halley Five with Vinny Golia, the Blue Cranes, the David Friesen Quartet, and us, the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble playing new music by Jasnam Daya Singh.

I had my headphones and my microphone out at last year’s festival, talking to pretty much everyone: artists, volunteers, listeners, and sponsors. These are some of my favorite interviews from last year, to get you excited for what’s coming up this year. Don’t miss this festival, it’s the jazz event of the summer.

Andrew Durkin's "Breath of Fire" is out now on PJCE Records! This pianist and composer, who led the firebrand Industrial Jazz Group in concerts around the world, releases his first album in seven years. The meditative music is inspired by Durkin's yoga practice, which he has started as way to keep his body flexible, and his spirit engaged.

Eddie Bond makes the unheard sounds of the bridges of Portland audible in his new composition for the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble's Oregonophony concerts April 13th at Willamette University in Salem, and April 15th at the Fremont Theatre in Portland.