Dee Dee Bridgewater, the only American artist to receive both a Grammy Award (in 1997) for her Ella Fitzgerald tribute, Dear Ella, and a Tony Award 30 years earlier for her portrayal of Glinda in the original Broadway production of The Wiz, has now created a new, highly theatrical jazz project, J ai Deux Amours.. This series of lush French love songs has been a project in the works for almost 10 years. A passionate cycle of songs that traces the arc of a love affair-literally and figuratively-of a young African-American woman expatriated to Paris with all of the emotions that emanate from the heart. Utilizing her magnificent vocal range, intensity of expression and keen wit, Ms. Bridgewater reflects upon her own life while simultaneously presenting various periods of time in the history of French music.

Bridgewater now splits her time between the US and France, and was recently made a member of the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie, an organization that recognizes individuals with an international perspective who have made significant contributions to French culture and society. As an Honorary French Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Bridgewater dedicates much of her personal time to an appeal for international solidarity to finance global, grass roots efforts in the fight against world hunger. She has also announced that she will spend a majority of 2006 in the former French colony of Mali, Africa, working with underprivileged female musicians.

After her first professional experience as vocalist with the Thad Jones/Mel Louis Big Band, she became a frequent collaborator throughout the 70's with such jazz notables as Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, and Dizzy Gillespie. She moved to France in the early 80's before reestablishing US residence in Las Vegas 2 years ago. In all, J ai Deux Amours is her 16th album. Simultaneously, she has pursued a theatrical career in musical theater with The Wiz, Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies, Black Ballad, Carmen Jones, and a London production of Lady Day, a Billie Holiday tribute for which Bridgewater received the British Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a musical. She also became the first African-American to portray the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret. "ai Deux Amours is my way of thanking France, a country that opened its arms to me,"� explains Bridgewater. "Me, a little Black girl from Flint, Michigan! Like Josephine Baker, J ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris!"�

Dee Dee Bridgewater's J ai Deux Amours, presented by Enterprise Rent-A-Car, will be staged on Saturday, February 18, 8:00 PM, at the Portland Marriot Downtown on the Waterfront, Oregon Ballroom.

Nocolas Payton, Photo by Don Berryman

Times has said, "Payton's tone is the most magnificent with the biggest sound as if it were not made from sound waves but from something more tactile."� Like many New Orleans jazz musicians, Payton started playing the trumpet at a very early age (age 4 to be exact). Between the influence of his mother, a classical pianist, and his father, Walter, a renowned New Orleans jazz bassist, young Nicholas developed quickly. He went on to graduate from high school at New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, which also has such alumnus as Donald Harrison, Branford Marsalis, Marcus Roberts-all of whom worked under the tutelage of jazz director Clyde Kerr, Jr. Then, like the others, went on to study at the University of New Orleans with Ellis Marsalis.

After 8 recordings, he has been referred to as one of the primary "keepers of the flame" of traditional jazz emanating from New Orleans. He has received 5 Grammy nominations, and 2 Grammy Awards-one for his collaboration with the late, legendary Doc Cheatham, and another for his tribute to Louis Armstrong-all before the age of 30!

During his final semester at the University of New Orleans, Ellis Marsalis wrote, "Nicholas is a great musician, who is very serious about learning and developing all aspects of jazz musicianship. He has tremendous talent and a work ethic that matches his talent. This rare combination ensures an originality fundamental to jazz."� Nothing has changed

Guitar wizard Bill Frisell moved to Seattle in 1989 after a long association with John Zorn and other members of the New York avant-garde jazz community. Since moving to the Pacific Northwest, Frisell has found his own voice, which has been described as Americana Music, blending jazz with various other American music art forms from country and bluegrass to jazz and rock. With such acclaimed recordings as Nashville, Have A Little Faith, and Good Dog, Frisell knows no musical boundaries as evidenced by his most recent jazz collaboration with Elvin Jones and Dave Holland and Unspeakable, which won the 2004 Grammy for Contemporary Jazz.

Over the years, Frisell's various projects have primarily featured trios, but Unspeakable features a 7- member ensemble which Frisell calls the “Unspeakable Orchestra.” Besides Frisell on electric guitar-with his various, trademark techniques for recorded loops, screamer� and distortion pedals, modular delays and multi-effects processors-plus the 858 String Quartet, Tony Scher (bass), Kenny Wolleson (drums), plus turntables and samplings. One critic noted that the Unspeakable Orchestra is "industrial strength jazz."

With all of his musical changes, Frisell commented in a recent Down Beat interview: "It's weird how all the time there are these things happening simultaneously, but later they get extracted from each other. First, I was an ECM (elitist) guy, then I was a �downtown' (avant-garde) guy, then I was the Americana Guy, the Nashville Guy, a Jazz Guy- Nothing much changed."� Frisell notes that he never saw the Unspeakable Orchestra as a touring group, but will premiere the collective in New York and Washington, DC prior to the west coast premiere at Portland Jazz Festival.

Bill Frisell's Unspeakable Orchestra will be the finale of the first weekend of the Portland Jazz Festival on Sunday, February 19, 8:00 PM, at the Portland Marriott Downtown, Oregon Ballroom.

Stefon Harris, Photo by Andre Canter

Stefon Harris & Blackout will perform on Saturday, February 18, 10:30 PM, at The Governor Hotel, Heritage Ballroom, having played to sold out crowds from the Kennedy Center to the North Sea Jazz Festival The 4-time Grammy nominee has been named Top Vibes Player in 2004 by Jazz Times, Down Beat, JazzIz readers polls, as well as by Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune. He is also an active jazz educator, and has been Artist-in-Residence at both San Francisco Jazz Festival and the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and is a member of the Executive Board of Directors for Chamber Music Northwest.

Singer/songwriter Susan Werner describes herself as a “… reformed folksinger.” She has put down her guitar and traded in her jeans and flannel shirt for a black dress and piano. Influenced by Gershwin, Strayhorn and Cole Porter, Ms. Werner now creates new, and sometimes twisted, versions of the Great American Songbook. Her recent recording, I'm Not New, was cited as one of the Top Albums of 2004 by The Oregonian's music critic Marty Hughley. Werner describes her own (new) music as a “… subversive meeting of Carole King and Ella Fitzgerald.” Susan Werner is slated for Sunday, February 19, 4:30PM, at The Governor Hotel, Grand Ballroom. With Werner's musical training (a Master's degree in Classical Voice), plus a reputation for live, compelling performances, she has created a hybrid musical style to act as a counterpoint to more traditional jazz offerings.

Puerto Rican native and sax man Miguel Zenon at the tender age of 22 has become a central figure in the new Latin jazz, music more complex and unified than the term has ever implied before. Influenced heavily by the great Charlie Parker, Zenon left Puerto Rico at age 16 with a full scholarship to Berklee School of Music, and recently completed graduate studies at Manhattan School of Music. Beside regular gigs with such luminaries as David Sanchez, Charlie Haden's Land of the Sun and Liberation Orchestra projects, Danilo Perez, Ray Baretto, and the Mingus Big Band, Zenon has recorded 2 critically acclaimed albums for the new Marsalis Music label produced by Branford Marsalis. In 2004, he received The New Composer's Award from the New York State Arts Council, and was singled out for the “Rising Alto Sax” by Down Beat and was nominated by the Jazz Journalist Association for Best New Jazz Artist. Because of his longstanding interest in Puerto Rican music, Zenon's compositions are based upon the jazz music genre of La Musica Jibara, or "instrumental storytelling."�

Ravi Coltrane comes from a rich jazz heritage as the son of John and Alice Coltrane. Like his father, Ravi has become a virtuoso on the tenor and soprano saxophones, and on his new release In Flux has furthered his reputation as a musically diverse, rhythmically eclectic artist. Like his father, he plays within a quartet of piano, bass and drums, and on his new release has recorded 5 of his father's compositions. This is the first time that Ravi has recorded his father's work, stating that he simply wasn't ready to tackle such a challenge before. In addition to working with his own group, featuring some of New York's finest young musicians, including Luis Perdomo (piano), Drew Gress (bass), and E.J. Strickland (drums), Ravi will join the McCoy Tyner Trio in replicating his father's Classic Quartet with Tyner and the late Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison. Ravi, however, maintains that his primary influence was Sonny Rollins, who was a close friend, and sometimes competitor, of this father. Also recognized as a great jazz educator, Ravi Coltrane will present a workshop on Jazz Improvisation at Portland State University that is open to the public on Friday, February 17, at 2:00 PM. He will then perform that evening with Tyner at 8:00 PM at the Hilton Portland Grand Ballroom, and later with his quartet at 10:30 PM at the Governor Hotel, Heritage Ballroom-all of which will be performance highlights of Chasin' the Trane-Remembering John Coltrane.

With separate and collective performances by NEA Jazz Master McCoy Tyner and young Ravi Coltrane as its center piece, the Chasin' the Trane programming will extend over 2 days, February 17 & 18, and will include 2 lectures by Ashley Kahn, biographer and writer, who has written 2 widely acclaimed books, ‘Kind of Blue', The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, which chronicles Coltrane's early collaborations, and A Love Supreme, The Making of the John Coltrane Masterpiece, that details Coltrane's final, and most fertile years between 1961 until his early death in 1967. Kahn, who is also an editor at Rolling Stone and a music correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR), will have a new book, The House That Trane Built, The Making of Impulse Records, an exhaustive study of Coltrane's Classic Quartet. In addition, these lectures will be followed by roundtable panel discussions led by Howard Mandel, President of the Jazz Journalism Association, a specially commissioned Jazz Story, titled "Reflections on Trane,"� by Lynn Darroch with Rob Davis and John Stowell, and a Jazz Dialogue featuring McCoy Tyner, presented by Jazz Society of Oregon. Other related Chasin' The Trane programming will be announced next month. While the Tyner and Coltrane concerts are ticketed events, all of the education and outreach programs are free and open to the public.

Previously announced performances by Jim Hall and Eddie Palmieri with special guest Nicholas Payton, plus McCoy Tyner with special guest Ravi Coltrane, are also scheduled Most of these artists will appear during the Festival's first weekend, February 17-19, as part of PDX Jazz cultural tourism initiative, which was the driving force in starting the Festival in 2004 in conjunction with Portland Oregon Visitors Association (POVA). During its first two years, Portland Jazz Festival has been credited with selling several hundred hotel packages with its downtown hotel partners. The popular ticketing packages, including the Gold Circle and Jazz Passport, have attracted audiences from across the nation as well as drawing international attention. The exceptions to first weekend scheduling will be jazz guitar virtuoso Jim Hall, who will headline Jazz Society of Oregon's 2006 First Jazz, in a duo with keyboardist Geoff Keezer on Sunday, February 26, at the Hilton Portland Grand Ballroom. Programmed by Portland Jazz Festival for JSO, Denver vocalist Rene Marie will open JSO's annual fundraiser that will include performances by local artists to be named, presentation of the 2006 JSO Hall of Fame recipient, and the Jim Hall & Geoff Keezer duo as a grand finale to '06 PDX Jazz.

Portland Jazz Festival was recently named as one of the select beneficiaries of funding by the National Endowment for the Arts, and has been recognized as the official Oregon site for NEA Jazz Masters on tour.

Tickets for all Portland Jazz Festival concerts are now on sale through the Portland Jazz Festival website at www.pdxjazz.com or by calling 503-228-JAZZ (5299), at any Tickets West/Safeway Outlets, or by calling locally 503-224-8499 or toll free 800-992-8499. Various hotel and discounted ticket packages, including the popular Jazz Passport and the reserved seating ticket package the Gold Circle Pass, are also now available. For the Jazz Passport, call 1.87.PORTLAND (877-678- 5263) or visit www.TravelPortland.com. For the Gold Circle package, call the Festival office at 503- 228-5299 or visit www.pdxjazz.com.