Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 9, 2017)
August 9, 2017 The Skanner Page 7 Arts & Entertainment Albina Jazz Festival Pays Tribute to Portland’s Music History By Christen McCurdy Of The Skanner News S tephen Hanks’ father, Zane, moved to Oregon in 1952. He was in the Navy and was stationed in Astoria. But on the weekends he would come to Portland and visit the jazz clubs. In the 1940s and 1950s Portland’s North Williams Avenue was known as “Jumptown” or “Black Broadway.” The neighborhood was dotted with jazz “ heard Herbie Hancock and the Head Hunters and George Benson — that’s what really made me get interested in jazz,” Hanks said. Hanks also runs the Portland Pio- neers of Color Walking Tours, which takes regular walking tours through Albina and downtown Portland. About a year ago, he had the idea to combine his love of music and his interest in his- tory, and start a jazz festival that would pay tribute to jazz clubs in Albina. The Albina Jazz Festival takes place The jazz that came in during the World War II era, it was what we call now modern jazz. At that time it was called bop, or bebop, and it was just the hottest thing going on. And so that’s what came out of Albina clubs that attracted the hottest jazz per- formers from all over the country, and acted as an incubator for local talent. Due to his parents’ love of music – Hanks’ mother was also a jazz fan, and his parents owned a club in downtown Portland in the 1970s and 1980s called the Jazz Nest. Hanks grew up listening to jazz and learning about it. He admits, though, that he was late in connecting with the music itself. “I didn’t really get into jazz too much until I heard the jazz fusion. When I this Saturday and Sunday at the Sting- ray Café in the Left Bank Building on North Broadway — a venue Hanks spe- cifically chose because of its connec- tion to Portland Jazz History. Jump Town In 1945 the building now known as the Left Bank Building housed the Dude Ranch, which was open for less than a year, but which historians consider the birthplace of the Portland jazz scene. “There never was and there never will be anything quite like the Dude Brooks Brooks’ literary achieve- ments have made her an enduring figure in American culture— Black and White. While much has been said about her work, her hard life growing up in segre- gated Chicago has made her success all the more extraordinary. Some 36 years after capturing the Pulitzer, Brooks gave a sit-down interview in 1986 with the Library of Congress. The interview came as Brooks served as the 29th Consultant in Poet- ry for the world’s largest library. Alan Jabbour, the director of the Library of Congress’ American Folklore division, and E. Ethelbert Miller, poet and director of the Afri- can American Resource Center at Howard Uni- versity, interviewed her. The interview is posted on YouTube. During the interview, Brooks was asked how she learned that she had won the Pulitzer Prize. She said: “I was in a house at 9134 S. Went- worth and the lights were out. We hadn’t paid the electric bill so there was no electricity and it was dusk. It was dark in the house. My son [Hen- ry Blakely Jr.] was nine at the time. Jack Starr, a reporter from the Chica- go Sun-Times called. He said ‘do you know that ERICK JOHNSON/CHICAGO CRUSADER cont’d from pg 6 Poet Gwendolyn Brooks lived in Chicago’s Ivy Park Homes, formerly known as the Princeton Park housing project, when she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. you have won the Pu- litzer Prize?’ I said ‘no’ and screamed over the telephone. I couldn’t be- lieve it. So, he said well, it was true and it would be announced the next day. The next day, report- “ we would go out to the movies to celebrate. I don’t know what movie it was, before you ask.” Before moving to Princeton Park Homes, hard times and finan- cial challenges forced My son and I danced around in the dusk and decided we would go out to the movies to celebrate ers came, photographers came with cameras and I was absolutely petrified. I wasn’t going to say any- thing about the electrici- ty. Well, when they tried to plug their cameras in—nothing was going to happen.” Brooks continued: “Well, miraculously, somebody had turned the electricity back on that fast. I never knew exact- ly what happened. So my son and I danced around in the dusk and decided Brooks and her husband to move about six times on the South Side. Brooks used the profits of a sale of a house in Kalama- zoo, Michigan to buy the house at 7428 S. Evans in the Chicago’s Greater Grand Crossing neigh- borhood. According to author George Kent’s 1990 book, “A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks,” she lived in that house from 1953 to 1994. Today, the home is a Chicago land- mark. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE LEFT BANK PROJECT Veteran musicians, newcomers play in historic building on N. Broadway This weekend’s Albina Jazz Festival, which celebrates the history of jazz in Portland, will take place in the Stingray Café on N. Broadway, which in 1945 housed the Dude Ranch, one of the city’s first jazz venues. Pictured here is Louis Armstrong with Dude Ranch owners Pat Patterson and Sherman Pickett. Ranch,” writes historian Robert Diet- sche in the 2005 book, “Jump Town: the Golden Years of Portland Jazz, 1942- 1957.” “It was the Cotton Club, the Apol- lo Theater, Las Vegas, the Wild West rolled into one. It was the shooting star in the history of Portland jazz, a meteor bursting with an array of the best Black and Tan entertainment this town has ever seen: strippers, then called shake dancers, ventriloquists, comics, jug- glers, torch singers, world-renowned tap dancers like Teddy Hale, and of course the very best of jazz.” “The jazz that came in during the World War II era, it was what we call now modern jazz,” Hanks said. “At that time it was called bop, or bebop, and it was just the hottest thing going on. And so that’s what came out of Albina.” All the neighborhood’s other night clubs were casualties of a series of urban renewal projects that also de- stroyed hundreds of homes and the rest of Albina’s business district, which thrived well into the 1970s. In addition to boasting several thriv- ing venues, the Albina jazz scene was See JAZZ on page 8
