BY BRETT CAMPBELL
DMITRI MATHENY
P H O T O BY TO M K WA S I
MUSIC
TEA AND TRUMPETS
From hot to cool jazz and the American songbook
J
azz sometimes gets slagged as mainly grooves for dudes, but women have always
contributed enormously to the genre, even if they’ve not received attention
proportionate to their contributions. This Thursday, Aug. 13 at The Shedd, the
Oregon Festival of American Music (OFAM) showcases three of the most
popular female jazz singers of the 1920s.
Bessie Smith, dubbed the empress of the blues, brought that rural Southern sound to a
white, urban Northern audience: New York’s vaudeville stages. So did Ethel Waters, who
scored national hits with blues as well as ballads and other pop numbers, introducing
such classics as “Am I Blue?” and “Sweet Georgia Brown.” She worked with major
bandleaders like Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, eventually moving into
Broadway shows and film stardom. Annette Hanshaw personified the flapper girl on
records in the late ’20s and early ’30s, recording hits by Fats Waller and others, but
retired so early that’s she’s the least known of the trio today. Accompanied by Jesse
Cloninger and the Festival Hot 5, OFAM singers Siri Vik, Clairdee and Marisa
Frantz will sing standards like “Body and Soul,” “St. Louis Blues” and “Stormy
Weather” as well as lesser known hits from the period like “I’m a Jazz Vampire.”
Vik, Clairdee, Cloninger’s band and the great trumpeter Byron Stripling pay tribute
to two of America’s greatest songwriters on Friday, Aug. 14, in OFAM’s matinee concert
devoted to the music of Dorothy Fields (who co-wrote classics like “On the Sunny Side
of the Street”) and Andy Razaf, whose many hits for Waller and others include “Ain’t
Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose.” Ellington’s music takes the spotlight that night
when Cloninger’s band, Stripling, Vik and Clairdee join singers Shirley Andress and
Bill Hulings for a cabaret performance that revives the Duke’s days and nights as the
nationally renowned house band at Harlem’s Cotton Club from 1927 to 1930.
The Saturday, Aug. 15, matinee turns to musical theater revues like the Ziegfeld
Follies and musical comedies, which spawned some of the greatest songwriters in
history: the Gershwin brothers, Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. Backed
by the Emerald City Jazz Kings, Andress, Evynne Hollens, Ian Whitcomb and
Michael Stone sing famous hits like “I Got Rhythm,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” songs
from Showboat and much more. Saturday night’s big show puts Stripling in the spotlight
(with the festival’s hot band and Clairdee) playing the music of immortal trumpeter Louis
Armstrong — by any reckoning one of history’s most important musicians — from his
greatest era: the 1920s “Hot Fives” and “Hot Sevens” recordings that set the template for
most of the American popular music that followed.
The festival closes with a Sunday, Aug. 16, afternoon tea party featuring the music of
the 1920s’ so-called “society bands,” like those led by Henderson, Paul Whiteman and
more. The usual Shedd suspects will perform music made famous by the great singers of
the day like Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée, including some then-popular music that’s
unfortunately obscure today. OFAM’s time-traveling musical festival is one of Oregon’s
most delightful and educational summer traditions. For a full lineup of OFAM events,
visit theshedd.org.
The so-called hot jazz of the 1920s and ’30s spotlighted by OFAM this summer
eventually gave way to a cool jazz movement beginning in the early 1950s, and a couple
of visiting contemporary jazz bands coming to The Jazz Station this weekend draw on
that laid-back tradition. On Friday, Aug. 14, Portland’s Trio Subtonic (pianist Galen
Clark, bassist Bill Athens, drummer Russ Kleiner) brings its engaging grooves, fueled
by pop influences ranging from New Orleans funk to Brazilian bossa to hip hop.
On Saturday, Aug. 15, the Station hosts flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny’s band, playing
music from its 10th album, Sagebrush Rebellion, which includes jazz classics, West Coast
Cool Jazz and standards from the same mythical Great American Songbook that OFAM
helps keep alive. ■
eugeneweekly.com • A ugust 13, 2015
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