Happy Thanksgiving, Portland jazz fans.

If you need to get some holiday shopping done and are thinking some local jazz CDs would make good gifts (you’d be right to think this, of course), head over to the Diatic Records online store, where you can find all of their CDs on sale for $8 right now.  This even includes shipping!

Diatic sports a great roster of artists, including Gordon Lee, Chris Mosley, Renato Caranto, Tim Willcox, David Ornette Cherry, and more.  Head over and fill up that shopping cart.

If you’ve paid attention to jazz in the media in Oregon, you’ve probably come across some of Lynn Darroch’s work.  His journalism has appeared in the Oregonian, the Jazz Society of Oregon’s Jazzscene magazine, Willamette Week, etc.  He’s also a regular DJ on KMHD with a wonderful program on Friday afternoons, where “all roads lead to the blues.”

Often on his KMHD shows, Lynn has artists come in for interviews, usually promoting a gig they may have that evening or on the weekend.  He’s turned some of these into podcast form, which you can find on his website.  Dig through and do some listening, including clips from Randy Porter, Dave Frishberg, Pat Metheny, and others.  Lynn tells me that he also has some good ones in the archive that will appear eventually.  Hopefully we’ll start to see even more as KMHD has more interview segments now that they are partnered with OPB.

(While you’re on Lynn’s site, also make sure to check out his Jazz Stories, where he pairs spoken-word story telling with jazz underscoring performed by some of Portland’s finest musicians)

On November 18th, 1909, Johnny Mercer was born.  The man would go on to become on of the most famous and prolific American song composers.  “Skylark,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” and of course “Moon River” as well as countless others were penned by Mercer during a decades-long career.

As a celebration of what would have been Mercers 100th birthday, host Terry Gross welcomed Portland-based vocalist Rebecca Kilgore and pianist Dave Frishberg to her NPR program “Fresh Air” to discuss and perform Mercer’s music.

Read the article and listen to the interview/performance at the Fresh Air website.

Commotion’s self-titled album is now available on CD Baby.  The disc features some great Portland talent, including:

• Ben Darwish – keyboards
• Sam Howard – bass
• Russ Kleiner – drums
• Chris Mosley – guitar
• Chaz Hastings – percussion

On a couple of tracks, the group is augmented by a horn section including:

• Greg Garrett – trumpet
• John Nastos – saxophone
• Daniel Lamb – trombone

Pick up the album for some grooving, danceable, jazz/funk.

Here are a couple videos from the recording of Randy Porter’s new album, Thirsty Soul.  Visit Randy’s website to pick up the album.  The videos (and recording) featuring Randy on piano, John Wiitalia (from the Bay area) on acoustic bass, and Todd Strait and Reinhardt Melz on drums.

Boomerangst:

Art Lets a Light By:

Last year, Alan Jones and the Bridge Quartet (Darrell Grant – piano, Tom Wakeling – bass, and Phil Dwyer – saxophone) released “Day,” their first record.  “Day” was recorded at Clackamas Community College’s recording facility, which is proving to be one of the best choices in Portland (and the Northwest) to record accoustic music.

When the quartet was in town recording the record (all are Portlander’s except for Dwyer who hails from Vancouver BC.  Side note: ask the band about trying to get him across the border in time for the recording sessions), they spent the evenings playing gigs.  The live recordings from the public shows have now been released on Origin Records.

Aptly named “Night,” these recordings feature the band in a different setting than “Day.”  They may sacrafice the state-of-the-art recording technology of the studio, but they gain the interaction and energy from performing in front of a live audience.

“Night” is available on the Origin Records website.

Gordon Lee’s Rough Jazz Quartet will be releasing their new DVD this Friday at Jimmy Mak’s.  The DVD features footage from their January Jimmy Mak’s appearance as well as “special video paintings by Charlie Nanos.”  The release concert will feature Gordon Lee on piano, John Gross on saxophone, Alan Jones on drums, and Dave Speranza on bass (subbing for Dan Schulte, who appears on the DVD and original Rough Jazz CD)

Check on Jimmy Mak’s website for reservation and scheduling information.

Vocalist Retta Christie is releasing her newest CD this Sunday at the Old Church.  The CD features an all-star trio with saxophonist/clarinetist David Evans and piano-legend Dave Frishberg.  Tim DuRoche at Willamette Week has the following to say about Retta:

Retta Christie has a singular knack for that curious, vastly entertaining form of Americana that swings in the recesses between jazz and country. Think Jimmie Rodgers, dustbowl prophets like Cowboy Bob Wills or Floyd Tillman, or the flatland plains poetry of Hoagy Carmichael, and you’re in the neighborhood. Fans of Irving Berlin saloon songs will be swinging till the cows come home.

The show starts at 6:30 PM – tickets are $10 in advance through brownpapertickets.com or $15 at the door.