Tickets & Artist Information:

https://www.showclix.com/event/swatkins_08_05_2021

Doors: 7:00pm // Show: 8:00pm // Ages: 21+ 

Swatkins and the Positive Agenda

Steve Watkins (Swatkins) is a ginger-bearded smiley keyboard guy. His music generally sounds like a good time. This exceedingly positive individual is a songwriter, producer, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and a master of the talkbox, an old-school analog effect using his larynx and a vinyl tube to shape the sound of his keyboard.   

Sarah Clarke

Sarah Clarke is a Portland, OR native, best known for fronting high energy funk ensembles (Dirty Revival, Outer Orbit). She’s performed with numerous acts throughout the years, sharing stages with groups like Ghost-Note, Blossom, Moorea Masa and the Mood, Yak Attack, March 4th Marching Band, and many more. She has had the opportunity to dive into artist advocacy work, founding the non-profit Musicians in Solidarity as well as joining DJ O.G One as the co-director of MusicPortland LEAP, an advocacy project focused on supporting the Portland BIPOC music scene. Diving back into the life of a full time musician, she is thrilled to join the stage with one of Portland’s most sought after bands, greaterkind. Comprised of some of Portland’s top players, Charlie Brown III (Brown Branch, Tahirah Memory), Peter Knudsen (Ghost-Note, Outer Orbit) and Cory Limuaco (Amine, Jarrod Lawson) greaterkind is known for electrifying stages all throughout Portland, bringing a unique, tasteful and musically conscious soundscape to every show they play. A strong stand alone act, they have also backed musical acts such as, The Hamiltones, Judith Hill and Brian Jackson.

During World War II, Portland launched a national recruitment campaign that brought 100,000 workers to the city’s shipyards. Existing private housing was already scarce, and even more troubling, Oregon’s so-called real estate code of ethics restricted the thousands of newly arrived African Americans to only one neighborhood.

So a makeshift community was quickly built on a newly purchased floodplain just outside city limits: the city of Vanport.

At its height, nearly 40,000 people lived in Vanport, including 6,000 African Americans. Vanport was then the nation’s largest public housing project and the second-largest city in Oregon.

But Vanport wasn’t built to last. On Memorial Day, 1948, the Columbia River broke through the nearby levees, unleashing a historic flood that displaced 18,000 people from their homes—a quarter of whom were African American. The Vanport Flood was, in the words of a former resident, the Hurricane Katrina of its time.

Newly homeless, looking for work in racially segregated Portland, Vanport’s uprooted black community opened jazz clubs in their designated neighborhood. These clubs attracted the biggest names in jazz, and the vibrant culture soon established Portland as a true jazz city.

Portland’s jazz scene rose to a crescendo and over time, like the flood that dispersed it, evaporated in fragments. People passed away. Venues closed. But the audience remained, waiting for the music to return.

Today, the Vanport Jazz Festival intends to carry the torch of those musicians who moved to Oregon for work and filled the air with art.

We pay homage to this legacy by hosting a jazz experience for the modern day. We invite living members of the Vanport community, national-caliber talent, and jazz aficionados everywhere to discover this legacy and experience the revival.

2021 Artists

Sheila E. became a touring musician before the age of 20, performing and/or recording with George Duke, Herbie Hancock, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Gloria Estefan, Patti LaBelle, and Steve Nicks among others. Her producing, arranging, and performance talents have been showcased throughout the music and film industry with appearances on The Academy Awards, The Latin Grammy Awards, BET Awards, The American Music Awards, The Kennedy Center Honors, and The Summer Olympics, just to name a few. Her current single, “No Line,” with the legendary Snoop Dogg, is her continued contribution to the music industry. The Queen of Percussion plans to release new music later this year.

Albright launched his solo career in the infancy of what became the smooth jazz format, with Just Between Us in 1987 and has been a core part of the genre with chart-topping albums, countless radio hits, and as a member of many all-star tours, including Guitars & Saxes and Groovin’ For Grover. In the late 90s, he fronted a big band for and toured with pop star Phil Collins and did a dual recording with vocal great Will Downing called Pleasures of the Night. Between his last two Grammy-nominated solo albums Pushing The Envelope (2010) and Slam Dunk (2014), he enjoyed hit collaborations with “24/7” with guitarist Norman Brown and “Summer Horns” by Dave Koz and Friends, which were also Grammy-nominated for Best Pop Instrumental Albums. Gerald’s latest effort, 30, released in 2018, is an anniversary project reflecting on some of Albright’s favorite music that he has written over the past three decades.

Marion Meadows first hit the airwaves in 1991 with For Lovers Only, and after establishing himself as a staple of the smooth jazz format with his subsequent recordings, Keep It Right Here (1993), Forbidden Fruit (1994) and Body Rhythm (1996), Meadows has recorded or performed with Brook Benton, Eartha Kitt, Phyllis Hyman, Jean Carne, The Temptations, Michael Bolton, Angela Bofill, Will Downing among many others. In 1999 Meadows released Another Side of Midnight, considered by critics to be his strongest work to date. His follow-up, Next To You (2000), featured a mix of R&B-influenced jazz coupled with sensual Latin rhythms, and In Deep (2002), a neo-soul blend of jazz, R&B and hip-hop, brimmed with sophisticated arrangements. All three discs have been well received by his ever-growing, always loyal fans.

As humanity moves faces an ever-changing 
and uncertain world, Rebel Wise is utilizing the power of music & art to uplift our people & our communities with high-caliber production of modern Hip-Hop and world-fusion with conscious lyricism.

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Rebel Wise is a full-length collaboration project of Mic Crenshaw & Quincy Davis featuring 16 top-notch MCs from around the world. Our mission is to bring people together in community and offer an emergent narrative that cuts through the status-quo and breaks the spell of hopelessness.

The Driveway Jazz Series is a socially distanced, live-streamed outdoor jazz series held in front of a SE Portland bungalow. If you’re interested in attending in person, send a message at drivewayjazz.com/contact – space is limited. Most shows (with a few exceptions) take place on Fridays at 4pm; watch live and archived shows at https://www.facebook.com/drivewayjazz/live/. 

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Choro da Alegria (choro of happiness) is a Portland-based ensemble dedicated to playing the wonderful melodies of Brazil. The group draws much inspiration from the genre choro, which means cry or lament and has been loosely called “Brazilian ragtime.” Choro features samba rhythms, jazzy chords and fast tempos. Beyond choro the group enjoys performing classics tunes from Bossa Nova and MPB. The group released its first CD, “quiosque,” in 2015.

Choro da Alegria is:
Tom Pinit, bandolim
Pam Beaty, 7 string guitar and cavaquinho
Esteban Diaz, percussion
Peter Fung, percussion, cavaquinho and guitar