From the cozy Artichoke Music Café, I’m glad you joined us again. This week sitting across from me is one of Portland’s best drummers, Tyrone Hendrix who plays in several bands, we’ll get an update on that.

He’s also a part owner of the Alberta Street Pub where he has had a hand in booking and playing, of course.

We’ll also find out about his son who is also a drummer…..and the rest of his family.

Next week, another drummer and also a music journalist, Tim DuRoche will be here. I’d better sharpen my brain for that one. Tim is deep.

Of course, so is Tyrone. He took time out of a very busy schedule to visit. He’s going out on the road among many other things. Here’s Tyrone Hendrix.

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.