A look ahead to the Montavilla Jazz Festival

The Montavilla Jazz Festival is entering its second decade. It’s the only jazz festival in Portland that focuses on original music by local musicians. This year’s festival will feature more events and more live music than before.

OPB radio host Paul Marshall spoke with Executive Director Neil Mattson about this year’s festival, which runs from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Paul Marshall: The Montavilla Jazz Festival is entering its second decade. What are some of the events in store to help celebrate this year?

Neil Mattson: We’ve got a lot of different events, some free, some ticketed. We continue to do what we’ve done and just add on.

We did a great concert with the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble last year at Mount Tabor Park, the Caldera Amphitheater. It’s just a beautiful, amazingly beautiful setting. We’re doing that again and this time featuring the music of Christopher Brown. His quartet paired with the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble. It’s going to be pretty exciting with all this brand new music. Opening for them is Julana Torres featuring her brother Carmelo Torres. You’re going to get some Cuban jazz with a little bit of dancing in the park. Some great sounds are going to be happening in the park.

We’re really excited about our headliners at Alberta Rose Theater. It’s a little bit outside the neighborhood but a venue that really will hold these artists well and their presentation. Joe Kye with his special guest of the poet from Seattle, Shin Yu Pai. It’s going be theatrical and interesting to somebody who maybe isn’t a jazz die-hard. Joe is doing some storytelling. There’s gonna be poetry by Shin Yu. It’s going to be deeply personal and interesting and even a little interactive.

It’ll be pretty exciting with a lot lined up.

Marshall: There’s this connection between the Montavilla neighborhood and the jazz festival that’s continued over the years. Why does this relationship work so well?

Mattson: It’s the people that are involved. I live here and work with a lot of the business owners. When we started [this festival], the idea was why not have a jazz festival here?

It was kind of a why not energy and let’s do this. The businesses supported it. The artists were feeling supported and that other part of that impetus was saying, let’s highlight artists that are local and let them do what they want to do and make this thing artist-centered. Portland’s such a creative town. Montavilla is the home for this because Montavilla said why not.

Marshall: You’ll be presenting the Nick Fish Jazz Community Award, which honors the legacy of Portland’s jazz commissioner. How involved was [former Portland City Commissioner] Nick Fish in the jazz community?

Mattson: Nick was really important to us at Montavilla Jazz. He was there to really leverage support for Portland’s jazz community. He was there to make sure that those relationships and those doors were open just to keep Portland on the national jazz map. The Portland Jazz Festival is really an international festival and so important to our ecosystem.

We did our first festival and I knew who Nick Fish was a little bit in 2014. And all of a sudden, somebody tapped me on the shoulder and was like Nick Fish is here. He heard about it and showed up. That blew me away. He just continued to support us along the way.

Speaking at events, he was the headline MC for the George Colligan presentation with the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble in 2016. He really had a big impact.

Marshall: What makes the Montavilla Jazz Festival so unique compared to other festivals in Portland?

Mattson: [With the festival] we feel like we’re in a niche between different things that are going on in jazz festivals and music festivals. This is about local artists, and it’s about original music. We’re trying to explore that uniqueness this year. People can stroll around and see live music by student performers, see a concert in the plaza, stop in for dinner at a restaurant. They can hear a DJ set and just make that a unique experience as well. Other festivals are doing their thing and we’re trying to really make ours different. The work is really about local artists.

Marshall: Who were some of the performers that we should watch out for?

Mattson:

Nicole Glover - “The Fox”

Top of my list is Nicole Glover. She has just evolved so much as a performer over the last 10 years and getting to see that has been really exciting. Her sound is just so big and strong. She’s just a monster on that tenor sax. I’m just so impressed with Nicole’s sound. She’s studied the music so deeply that you hear Dexter Gordon in there. She’s the facility of like any of the best on her instrument right now. It’s just incredible listening to her and nobody has that sound.

Battle Hymns & Gardens - “King Mary’s Ball”

Related: Listen to "King Mary's Ball" on Bandcamp

We’re so glad to have Battle Hymns in this festival because we need to have more free jazz. It’s like a personal quest. Sometimes this music can be challenging for folks because it’s very improvised and there’s a shell of a form. It’s loose but they’re staying in that form and the level of improvisation and loose structure is more apparent.

Battle Hymns & Gardens - “Leo”

Folks that are fans of the Blue Cranes, this is similar to the Blue Cranes and adding in Tim DuRoche and the guitar player Dan Duval, who is possibly one of the best guitarists in town and he’s very underknown. People either don’t know him or he’s just very underappreciated. We’re just happy to have free jazz represented at this festival.

Bryn Roberts Trio - “Let’s Agree”

Roberts is just the elegant voice on the piano and just really sophisticated. I think of him in the Bill Evans school. His influences are wide-ranging.

Bryn is a favorite, and I am excited to get him on the festival this year. This is the first time for him to lead a project. We had something big planned in 2020, and we know the rest of that story.

Bryn really gets it when we had artists put out their pitches for playing the festival, and he got what we’re looking to do. You would not be able to see this on any given weekend in Portland. We want to make it special and make it something really unique.

The trio will be playing with Justin Copeland, who is an amazing local trumpet player. It’s the trio plus Justin, which is gonna be even better.

Dan Balmer Trio - “When the Night”

This one is really special to me because I know what he’s talking about. The “Lifesize Bright” is his homage to Pat Metheny. As a guitarist, you’re influenced by Pat Metheny.

I’m really excited that this is happening. This is also a unique, once-in-a-lifetime concert at Strum with Dan, This is a small room, so it’s going to be very intimate. I’m sure it will sell out and it’ll be pretty incredible to hear this group.

DoubleDash - “Home”

Related: Listen to "Home" on Bandcamp

Machado Mijiga and Dario LaPoma. It’s actually a duo. It’s definitely a big sound and in that particular intro it starts really ambient, and I love hearing something that people might not expect when they think jazz. It’s got a little trap influence, a little EDM and some synth. It has a lot of sonically interesting music. We don’t have a lot of like two-person ensembles at the Montavilla Jazz Festival, so this is actually a first. It definitely sounds bigger than two people. It’s an equally presented duo.

Integer Quintet - “Strength”

Todd Marston leads that group into and he is definitely one of the most prominent composers in our scene in Portland right now. With Integer, you’re getting a balance between what’s improvised and what’s composed. Todd is definitely a sculptor of sound and him at the piano leading the way that track is really cool. I really think of him as a really intelligent and gifted composer.

Jasnam Daya Singh - “Unwavering Love”

Related: Listen to "Unwavering Love" on Soundcloud

Jasnam is such a brilliant pianist and writer. I keep saying that because all these musicians are just that.

We’re really hoping that folks who are appreciators of classical music get their attention with this jazz trio plus string quartet gig. This is very composed music, and this is something we’ve never done before.

It’s very intimate and this particular group in that setting is gonna be pretty magical.

Joe Kye - “11-8″

Hearing that groove is pretty cool and I’m so excited for Joe’s concert and his band. It’s going to be an audio-visual on the screen during the presentation but also being executed on stage. Folks should come check it out. It’s going [to] be like jazz meets something else.

Joe Kye - Shoulder

The theme is exploring a lot of personal topics including his experience as an immigrant growing up in a Korean family. Hearing those beautiful lyrics in the Korean language is pretty incredible. He’s got this beautiful voice and he’s just deeply personal as an expressive performer and artist. I’m very excited to hear this concert.

Marshall: What do you hope people take away from the Montavilla Jazz Festival?

Music is definitely healing. Even though I’m directing the festival, when I get a chance to just sit down it’s healing, and I hope that people take away that healing vibe. There are so many different presentations this year.

It’s the end of the summer, so come out and support the local artists that we’re presenting. I want them to take away that we’re onto something with this format. There’s something special going on here. With the Montavilla Jazz Festival, we want people to come down and check out all the businesses and to support the effort. There are opportunities to meet the musicians and talk to them after their set. I just hope that people get that healing vibe that we need.

Listen to more of Paul Marshall’s conversation with Neil Mattson about this year’s Montavilla Jazz Festival: