Esperanza Spalding, the Grammy Award winner from Portland, sang and played bass at the Biamp Portland Jazz Festival in an event with Shabaka Hutchings, Friday, Feb. 23 at Newmark Theatre.
The annual Pickathon festival, taking place outside of Portland August 4-7, includes three top modern jazz acts: Sons of Kemet, Nubya Garcia and Nate Smith + KINFOLK.
February 15 2021
International concerts, music films, local shows mark the 18th event, which had to change like everything else.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic began and normal life went away, the Biamp PDX Jazz Festival took place as usual in 2020 with in-person concerts. We wrapped our last day of the 2020 festival 10 days before the COVID shutdown happened, said Nicholas Salas-Harris, the festival s artistic director. We were literally one of the only jazz festivals to go to in 2020.
Well, if anything, they had a lot of time to plan for the 2021 festival, although Salas-Harris, Executive Director Chris Doss and the whole crew entered the summer of 2020 still believing the PDX Jazz Festival would happen live again. Once it appeared live wouldn t be possible and it would have to be virtual, organizers set about trying to make the best festival possible. (Upon last week s announcement that the Portland tri-county area s pandemic status had been upgraded and that some ind