Fifty-one years ago Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen album was released. It was and instant classic. You may not know a lot of backstory but by the time you finish listening to this you’ll know a bucketful because with me in the Artichoke Music Café is the percussionist from that band.

You know him, he’s in the Oregon Music Hall of Fame.

It’s Bobby Torres who also played with Joe Cocker at Woodstock.

As you may remember, Leon Russell played a huge part in the Mad Dogs band which was ad hoc at the time.

So let’s go back to 1970 and find out what life was like with the mad dogs and Englishmen.

All I have to do is push this little chromium switch.

The tune at the end is "Afuebe" by Ghanaian Master Drummer Israel Annoh from the album of the same name, Produced by Bobby Torres.

Our guest today used to be a fixture in the music scene in Oregon…then he got married and moved to Victoria…that’s in Canada. Or maybe he moved first. I dunno. But whatever, that’s where David Vest lives now.

And he’s won all kinds of national awards there.

He is releasing his first recordings in three years. Two CDs, both live but very different from each other.

One, recorded at a festival in Calgary and the other in a small club in Victoria. The festival is full of our favorite David Vest tunes, raucous boogie-woogie.

The other is very subtle. I don’t think there’s a name for it yet The songs are familiar Blues tunes but the arrangements and the attitudes are…well it’s almost Chamber Blues.

Mr. Vest will tell it best.

And we’ll hear a tune from the club at the end.

From the friendly confines of the Artichoke Café once again. It’s time to try to understand what the hell is going on with our ability to go hear live music in person and find out what club owners are dealing with.

Without clubs and concert venues, we’re sunk and sunk is not a good way to enjoy a live band.

Neil Leeborg who is a co-owner of the Goodfoot Lounge is here. They’re open, although not with music every night as they used to be, and they were one of the first to require proof of vaccination.

It’s been a tough road for Neil and other club owners. Let’s find out what might be in store for us.

This is a special episode of Coffeeshop Conversations @ Artichoke Music and one in a series of radio interviews I did thirty years ago.

Still listening or reading? I’m grateful.

I was doing a talk show for the American Radio Network when radio networks meant something. And it was before the internet too, in the days of newspapers and pay phones.

I decided that I would interview people who I had always wanted to talk to. One of them was pianist/composer Cecil Taylor. He was world famous and little-known because of how his music sounded.

Taylor was known as being as ferocious as his music, at least that’s what I heard.

I was afraid he was going to eat me for lunch, so I used the weight of a commercial network radio show as leverage and asked Gary Giddins,probably the top Jazz Journalist in the world, in English anyway, and a friend of Taylor’s if he would join Taylor and I in a one hour live intereview. He said yes.

And then I asked Taylor. Good move. He said yes, too.

You’re about to hear the result. Please excuse the crappy audio. It’s an air check and the gear was pretty bad. Suggest you use headphones. You won’t be sorry.

I’ve left in the commercials and breaks to mark the place in time when this occurred. It was March third 1990 in Baltimore, Maryland in the studio of the American Radio Network. And yes, the following was my theme music.

Back in masks at Artichoke Café because the governor said to. She knows more about it than I do.

Thankfully someone is here with me. His name is Noah Kite, he’s a singer, composer and guitarist who has a new album out this week called Drunk Lil’ Guy.

In case you’re wondering, he is not the drunk lil guy. We’ll get into that.

He calls what he does Chamber Folk which is just as good a musical concept as it is a marketing tool.

Don’t get me wrong tho, Noah is a serious human, the songs, the music and his demeaner.

His release gig is Friday, September 3rd at Polaris Hall with Sama Damas and Blair Borax.

Let’s meet Noah Kite

Composer/guitarist Ryan Meagher is in the Artichoke Café with me today at yet another turning point in the long sad saga of trying to make and listen to music during the pandemic.

He’s one of the folks who plan and execute the Montavilla Jazz Festival around this time every year. OMN is happy to be a sponsor. It’s the festival home for what we used to call “avant-garde” music. I don’t know if anyone has settled on a new name for it but you know what I mean.

This year it’s Friday, August 20 to 22nd.

Ryan will tell us about it, but since we do these a week or so in advance and since covid protocols have changed, please check with their website to find out if there are any changes. https://montavillajazz.org/

Meanwhile, I delayed turning on the recorder until we had talked baseball for a while, which we always do.

It’s lovely to be joined in the Artichoke Café today by singer, guitarist, composer and all-around great person, Mary Flower.

She’ll be a part of a celebration here at Artichoke they’re calling Summerfest, Thursday through Sunday, August 26th through 29th with a full lineup of not only your Artichoke favorites but some folks you’d never expect like Coffeeshop Conversations favorites Darkswoon.

Mary has a new tune, written during the pandemic which she will perform for us at the end of our conversation.

We’ll also find out how she’s handling emerging again.

Next week Ryan Meagher will be in the Café and tell us about how he and his compatriots have put together an exciting 2021 version of the Montavilla Jazz Festival.

But now let’s turn our attention to Mary Flower.

You may not know it but our opening music is a tune called Ghost Jazz. The composers have kindly let us use it all these years.

It was written by Keith Schreiner also known as Auditory Sculpture and today’s guest trumpeter, composer and educator Derek Sims.

They called themselves Jazztronica in the early 2000s.

Derek holds the trumpet chair in Mel Brown’s famed Septet, previously held by Thara Memory.

He started the Portland Jazz School in September of 2017, is the Adjunct Professor of Jazz Trumpet and the Jazz Band Director at Portland State University.

What I didn’t know before talking to him today is that he has returned to his Jazztronica period in his newest compositions.

Let’s catch up with Derek Sims.

A newish band has emerged in the past couple of years called Outer Orbit. It’s made up of members of some of Portland’s top Soul, Funk and Jazz bands,...including Tyrone Hendrix, Damien Erskine, Sarah Clarke, Peter Knudson and Michael Elson.

That’s what it’s always been like in Oregon. You have to be versatile to make a living as a musician.

Galen Clark of Outer Orbit, Trio Subtonic and lots of other ensembles is with me in the Artichoke Café to talk about those bands and how he navigates between them.

We recorded this a couple of weeks ago, before Outer Orbit’s breakout set at the Waterfront Blues Festival. So please excuse any out of date gig references,

Next week Mary Flower will be sitting here and the week after Derek Sims.

Let’s meet Galen Clark.

For a lot of people, the top musical experience of 2021 has been the new documentary by Questlove called Summer of Soul, built around a series of concerts in Harlem, New York City in 1969.

I say built around because it adds political and cultural context to the music.

The music is Soul, Funk R&B, Blues, Gospel, Latin and African, the panoply of Black music at the time. I say Black because the movie puts the music in context with the emerging Black consciousness.

It is a deeply emotional experience. Bring klneenex.

To talk about it, joining me from Washington DC is OMN National editor, author and investigative reporter Art Levine.