trekking?
BY VANESSA SALVIA
medical advice for
global travelers
T HE T RAVEL C LINIC
1200 Hilyard St., Suite S-560
343-6028
Start traveling healthy today at www.TravelClinicOregon.com
live
jaz g z htly!
ni
April
Fridays & Saturdays—9:00
Only $5 Cover
April 2:
April 3:
April 9:
April 10:
April 16:
April 17:
April 23:
April 24:
April 30:
The Jazz Syndicate
Mood Area 52
Gus Russell Quartet w/ Mike Anderson
Cubist Quartet
The Side Project
Skip Jones
The Dahman Beck Band
The Jazz Menagerie
Carminzs
Faun Fables’ Dawn McCarthy
plays Sam Bond’s
Thursday, April 1.
Sundays 4, 11, 18, 25 – 9:00 pm
Mark Alan ($3 cover)
Monday-Thursday No Cover
Mondays 5, 12, 19, 26 – 9:00 pm
Funky Monday
Open Mic from 7-8:30 pm featuring
Skip Jones on the Hammon Organ 8:30-12 pm
Call to sign up @ 5:30 pm
Tuesdays 6, 13, 20, 27 – 8:30 pm
Barbara Dzuro Jazz Piano
Wednesdays 7, 14, 21, 28 – 9:00 pm
Andrea Lee 4/7
Liesel Alkire Duo 4/14
Olem Alves Duo 4/21
Toby Koenigsberg Trio 4/28
Thursdays 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 – 9:00 pm
The Jo Fed’s Jazz Jam Session
259 E. 5th Ave. • 343-8488
jofeds.com
20 Years Serving Our Patrons
26 APRIL 1, 2004
Songtelling
Dawn McCarthy, Willy Porter and more.
T
wo equally compelling shows will
take place on Thursday night this
week. Dawn “The Faun” McCarthy
returns to Sam Bond’s Garage to debut songs
from Faun Fables most recent CD, Family
Album, the group’s third recording but first
for new label Drag City.
On Family Album, McCarthy is joined as
usual by Gorilla Sleepytime Museum’s Nils
Frykdahl providing vocals, instrumentation
and song collaboration. Oakland, Calif.,
resident McCarthy brings in several other
guest musicians, notably Noe Venable and
McCarthy’s own mother, sister and
brother.
McCarthy is a magical songwriter with a
haunting voice reminiscent of Cat Power’s
Chan Marshall and a style of performing she
calls “songtelling.” Her voice and music is
otherworldly, existing in a perpetual state of
twilight calm with enchanted lyrics pulled
from the subconscious. In this series of songs
and ballads, McCarthy celebrates the power-
ful yet tenuous web of familial relationships:
memories of a piano-playing mother, the
family dog in the song “Lucy Belle,” a dead
son in “Joshua,” daughters straddling the po-
tent years between girlhood and womanhood
in “Preview,” and even the household mouse
in the track “Mouse Song.”
Samurai Duck will host Portland group
This is a Process of a Still Life
Thursday, along with Burke Jam. The band,
bassist Jason Ward, guitarist Ben Rouner,
drummer Gary Jimmerson (who also plays
melodica), keyboardist and percussionist
Grier Phillips and guitarist Scott Kennedy
came together in spring of 2003 in Missoula,
Mont. and traveled to the northwest to make a
debut album.
Recorded in Portland by Slackjaw mem-
ber Rob Bartelson, the CD is an instrumental
landscape of minimalist melodies, founded
on drum and bass with guitar rhythms form-
ing and merging to create depth and emotion.
Viola provided by Caitlin Olsen on two tracks
adds a luscious gloss. Fans of Mogwai,
Tortoise or Maserati will find plenty to ad-
mire in this band’s work, which reveals new
depths and moods with each listen.
Milwaukee-based musician Willy
Porter graces Cafe Paradiso’s stage
Saturday, as he celebrates the release of his
brand new live CD, High Wire Live. Porter
has performed everywhere in the U.S. and
Europe. High Wire Live is a documentary of
his last year and a half on the road (including
stops in in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,
Portland and Birmingham, England) and fea-
tures his most requested songs: “Angry
Words,” the funky “Tribe,” “Dishwater
Blonde,” and “Mystery,” among others.
Porter performs solo, just him and his gui-
tar, and develops a close rapport with his au-
diences, who have come to respect his fleet-
fingered guitar playing and quiet, unassum-
ing songwriting. While Porter is not known to
perform other people’s songs, he did include
one cover on High Wire Live: “You Stay
Here” by Richard Schindell, an American
songwriter living in Argentina. This song also
features High Wire Live’s only guest musi-
cian, Jethro Tull’s electric guitarist Martin
Barre. The song was recorded while Porter
accompanied Jethro Tull on a European tour.
Porter’s relaxed stage presence allows the
true star of his show — his fretwork — to
shine. Acoustic Guitar magazine describes
Porter as “the triple threat: — great singing,
quality songwriting and the apparent influ-
ences of fellow guitarists Leo Kottke and
Michael Hedges. Relix magazine gives him
the ultimate props, calling his 2003 self-titled
release a great record, but one that barely
serves him justice. The magazine echoes
many fans’ opinions, that High Wire Live
“captures the personable, intimate musician
in real time.”
While fans appreciated Porter’s past CDs
(Porter debuted in 1990 with The Trees Have
Soul) it’s really his live performances they
relish, and this CD gives them yet another
way to keep Porter’s rootsy sound alive be-
tween shows.
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