It Is...and It Isn't

While it isn't officially a part of Jewish Arts Month (JAM) here in Portland, the Portland Jazz Festival will be serving up some amazing music!  And it comes in mid-February! JAM will launch our festival sometime in late February....but we're proud of this JAZZ Festival and encourage everyone to check it out!!!!!!

http://pdxjazz.com/portland-jazz-festival  has the complete schedule...but this is the gist of the festival (below) .....

..........WOW!!!!!
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BRIDGES AND BOUNDARIES: 
JEWISH & AFRICAN AMERICANS PLAYING JAZZ TOGETHER

The 2011 Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air Portland Jazz Festival presented by US Bank will be held Friday, February 18 through Sunday, February 27 at venues throughout Portland. The week-long festival will include jazz education and outreach along with a series of concerts all supporting the 2011 theme,Bridges and Boundaries: Jewish & African Americans Playing Jazz Together.

Among this year’s headliners are the SFJAZZ Collective, in the world premiere of new repertoire paying homage to African American pop icon Stevie Wonder; NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston, performing solo piano in support of his new release, The Storyteller, and autobiography, African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston; celebrated clarinetist Don Byron and his new project dedicated to the great Jewish entertainer, Mickey Katz – a reunion of the groundbreaking and virtuosic klezmer ensemble that recorded Byron’s eponymous Nonesuch album and spearheaded the klezmer revival in the 1990s; a special performance by The 3 Cohens, featuring siblings, trumpeter Avishai Cohen, saxophonist/clarinetist Anat Cohen, and pianist Yuval Cohen; famed African American violinist Regina Carter will return to Portland, presenting her newest project, Reverse Thread, which traces the musical history of African cultures, including tribes of Ugandan Jews; saxophonistJoshua Redman - son of African American saxophonist Dewey Redman and Jewish American dancer Renee Shedroff – leading his new project, James Farm, that includes both African American and Jewish American musicians; and the Portland Jazz Festival’s new Artistic & Community Ambassador, bassist Esperanza Spalding (who will lead her new Chamber Music Societyin an exclusive Portland area engagement).