By Howard Mandel

From a snooty, snotty New York point of view, a jazz festival in Portland, Ore., seems redundant. With the third annual Portland Jazz Festival headlined by a roster of frequent New York performers, it begged the question: Why go West when they could all be enjoyed back home? It turned out to be worth it, and not only for the fresh air. 

Once within sight of Mt. Hood, one gains sympathy for the populace of this burg of half a million. Though the pop scene’s big enough to fill an amphitheater for jammin’ blues/jazz/rock guitarist Derek Trucks on a Thursday night, there’s no venue booking internationally-acclaimed jazz performers.

Pianist McCoy Tyner hadn’t been through in recent memory and was taken aback by the crowd of 500 diehards who turned out at Portland State University to hear him talk—which he does rarely—about the art he’s practiced some 50 years. 

He must have been blown away by the standing ovation from a full house of 1,200 for his trio-plus-guest star concert in the Hilton Portland Grand Ballroom. That’s 200 hundred more listeners than fit in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall, and Tyner’s only appeared there, so far, in the “Higher Ground” New Orleans benefit concert. (He does have a major gig in collaboration with Savion Glover at Aaron Davis Hall, on the CCNY campus Fri., March 24.)  

All ages sat in long rows at the small host clubs, absorbed in vibist Stefon Harris’s loosely structured but highly energized ensemble display, swept up in altoist Miguel Zenon’s focused blowing, absolutely rapt in the weekend’s finale by guitarist Bill Frisell’s Grammy Award-winning—string-dominated—Unspeakable Orchestra. At every gig in which I peaked my head, the audience looked overwhelmingly content.

Smaller impromptu spaces, such as a nook in Jake’s Grill and the corner by the window of Rogue Distillery and Public House were used for free jam sessions and gigs by local stars. Notable among those was pianist Darrell Grant, former pianist for Betty Carter, who has inherited the Portland State teaching gig first held by pianist-composer Andrew Hill and is firing up educational initiatives besides mentoring kids. 

Tenor and soprano saxophonist Devon Phillips is a New Orleans expatriate who, along with 50 other Katrina-victimized musicians, took refuge in Portland thanks to the jazz festival’s NOLA 2 PDX assistance program, and he’s making the most of it. 

Phillips has established a funk-oriented band and a straight-ahead post-bop quintet. On short notice he took plane-delayed Donald Harrison’s chair in the hotly competitive frontline of Palmieri’s Afro-Caribbean jazz octet—another revelation in a place where the black population’s slight and Latino/Hispanic residents fewer yet. Phillips was thrilled to be called to sub. 

“There are more opportunities for me here than there were in New Orleans even before the storm,” he said backstage.

“It’s cool here. I’m getting gigs arranged that we can run out to quickly. It’s only a two hours flight from LA, and there are studios here I’m looking at to go into and record. I’ll be here; I’m staying,” he insisted.

And why not? How do we expect to lure new talent to an imperious city until wages equal housing and lifestyle costs? Portland suggests the alternative to NYC. Its jazz fest gives new meaning to out-of-town tryout.