A family-member-by-marriage, now removed, in childhood, used to refer to the trinkets from a trip as SOUP AND EARS.
It’s stuck in my mind as a charming locution, and the answer to the question, “Hey, what’d you bring us from the Evergreen Jazz Festival?” Never fear, dear readers. No photographs of double rainbows, and I saw no elk, but there was glorious music.
Here are the first three performances from the first set I saw, which should give you a good idea of the intense pleasures to be found there. The group, a favorite, is the Holland-Coots Jazz Quintet, with Brian Holland, piano; Danny Coots, drums; Marc Caparone, cornet / vocal; Steve Pikal, string bass; John Otto (for this weekend) clarinet.
EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY:
SHINE:
Incidentally, if you think that SHINE is a “racist” song, its authors were African-American and the song is an assertion of race pride in the face of prejudices. Read this, please.
and ALL BY MYSELF:
Those of you who know that Danny’s father was a minister won’t be surprised that Danny takes the microphone between songs to share a moral moment, a little homily: worth your attention:
There’s much more good music to come.
May your happiness increase!
