LivePDX.com music blog for this week

While wondering, after interviewing Bettye LaVette, why I am still such a fool when a woman calls me, "baby," but knowing that all men are:

Noah Mickens, who I have called "the impresario of the avant-garde" in Portland is out of a job again. Rotture/Branx/Hippodrome owner Mike Wolfson relieved Noah of his duties, or as Noah put it, "fired me." You may remember that Noah was at Someday Lounge at its birth, got it off the ground, booked all the acts and was the face of the place. He got the gate there, too.

Not sure what the deal was at Rotture, but he did wonders for it. I know that Noah will find another way to bring the most exciting and dangerous music, musicians and performers to whatever place he ends up next.

When I ran into him at the anti-war march last Saturday he was a part of the troupe surrounding Tuvan throat singer Soriah, who performed a ritual of some sort. I don't pretend or need to understand it in order to appreciate it. He says he'll still be putting on shows, but not at one venue only. Good idea.

Rachel Taylor Brown's CD release gig on Saturday, April 5 at Mississippi Studios
should be quite an event. The album half hours with the lower creatures is spectacular, crossing genres and my brain up.

She wrote me, "i'm delighted to say that in addition to your kind spinning on kmhd,
"creatures" has been getting radio play [truthfully, this whole process makes me very nervous and near-vomitous, but so far, so good (knock on wood)]
"the band and i are covering all the very many cruel parts from the cd by ourselves. the show should be interesting and exciting because someone's head will explode...
p.s...fyi, i started recording the next album (saints & superheroes) a coupla weeks ago."

Of course, I'll be on the air and will miss the gig. I miss a lot of gigs.

Dropped into Falcon Recording Studios
other day while Terry Robb was putting the finishing producer touches on Karen Rohr's new album. It's not blues, or Americana. It's not singer-songwriter either. It rocks with surprisingly disarming and very direct personal lyrics. The twist to the whole thing is that there are no guitars and what sounds like a guitar (and will fool you) is her electric mandolin. It works. She is the daughter of George Kindler who played with David Bromberg and Steve Kindler who played with John McLaughlin, Jan Hammer and Jeff Beck is her uncle.

Sixteen year-old phenom Mac Potts just got a new nine-foot Baldwin grand and a Hammond and has begun recording a new album. He is playing with special guests at Hudson's on Sunday nights. Reggie Houston sat in last Sunday.

I want to check out Polka Madre y la Comezon on Tuesday, March 25 at Someday Lounge. They tell me the band "has surprised its audiences with the originality of its compositions and the energy, sarcasm and humor of its live shows. After two and a half years since its conception in Mexico City, Polka Madres principle influences lie in Jewish music and the old sounds of Gypsy and Eastern European cultures."

I'm there.

Jazz trumpeter Ingrid JensenT Jensen was in town this week meeting with trumpet manufacturing maestro David Monette to get the mouthpiece just right before she takes possession of one of his musical works of art. People come from all over the world to Monette's. She played at Jimmy Mak's
Jimmy Mak's on Monday with drummer Alan Jones.

One odd thing I found out about Bettye LaVette during my radio interview with her last week was that before they got married she told her latest husband that she does not sing around the house. He didn't believe her but he does now. I asked her how she persevered all these years, just coming into her own after over forty years singing. She said, "I quit every day."

Look for the Tugboat brewpub to become more active booking some of the best jazz musicians in town after the fall of Jax and Blue Monk.