Amid a chill, Jazz Festival gives a blast of heat

One of the chances you take with a festival in winter is that the weather might be, well, especially wintry. The start of the 2006 Portland Jazz Festival felt the effects of the weekend's cold snap, and in more ways than just the bundling up that fans had to do as they moved between hotel ballrooms, nightclubs and the like amid the 20-some-degree wind chill.

The brisk Portland air wasn't too much of an obstacle -- though it did manage to blow through the Hilton Portland Grand Ballroom (in the basement, in the middle of the building, no less, far from any exterior doors and windows) during McCoy Tyner's Friday night performance. It was weather elsewhere that caused problems.

Two members of Nicholas Payton's quintet were delayed by snow in Salt Lake City and didn't arrive in time for the trumpeter's Saturday afternoon show. Later that evening, singer Dee Dee Bridgewater performed without her regular bassist, whose travel plans, she told the crowd at the Portland Marriott, also were disrupted by a storm.

Even so, the fires of musical creativity and spontaneity burned brightly enough to best Old Man Winter.

With accordionist Marc Berthoumieux taking up an acoustic bass guitar for a few songs, Bridgewater and her band had no trouble weaving their cosmopolitan spell in a program that deftly blended American swing and European theatricality, interpreting songs by Jacques Brel and Charles Trenet. Before Payton had arrived in town (or even knew his bandmates would be missing), festival organizers enlisted highly capable replacements. With Portland stalwart Darrell Grant on piano and Mark DiFlorio, a recent transplant from New Orleans, on drums, Payton's show gave off such sparks you wanted to thank the storm for making the impromptu combo possible.

The creative heat was highest, though, in the first big show of the festival, Tyner's. The 67-year-old master pianist walked stiffly, spoke in a quiet, sometimes hoarse voice, yet showed no loss of vigor behind the keyboard. He played with a stately touch -- crisp, authoritative, yet elegant -- and his improvisational ideas flowed with remarkable clarity, balanced between the romanticism of his rich harmonic vocabulary and the boldness of his percussive attack. He chose music that was by turns wistfully tender ("Ballad for Aisha"), earthy and direct ("St. Louis Blues") or expansively expressionistic ("Fly With the Wind"), yet he always sounded singularly like McCoy Tyner, his famously deft left hand flashing big block chords and intricate melodic decorations.

Bassist Charnett Moffett was a marvel as well, articulating spidery-fast phrases, bowing long upper-register sighs and even popping the big double-bass strings with his thumb, the way funk players will whack an electric bass guitar. Ravi Coltrane, the son of Tyner's mentor, John Coltrane, made a guest appearance on tenor sax, blowing with a focus and intensity that unfortunately was missing when he led his own quartet later that evening.

Bridgewater's sassy charm was considerable, as were the joys of Payton's loose-limbed blowing session. But the other standout set of the festival's first two days would have to be the Saturday afternoon show by Miguel Zenon. The rising Puerto Rican altoist was as compelling blowing soft, spare melodies as he was launching into improvisational overdrive. And his compositions had a sense of narrative development well beyond the theme/solo/theme norm. They'd build, crest, change directions, advance again, creating a gripping if understated drama, aided especially by the sharp, intent accents from drummer Henry Cole. Upcoming events: In a reversal from the scheduling of its first two years, this year's festival presented the bulk of its headline performers on opening weekend. But the festival continues to offer worthwhile programs through Sunday. Among the notable events to come: Devin Phillips' New Orleans Straight Ahead, featuring the exciting young saxophonist, at noon today in Room 75 of Portland State University's Lincoln Hall; "The Incredible Journey of Jazz," an historical overview, at 2 p.m. today in Reed College's Kaul Auditorium, 3203 S.E. Woodstock Blvd.; Jed Wilson, the former Gladstone High piano phenom, at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Old Church, 1422 S.W. 11th Ave.; and Jim Hall, the quietly legendary guitarist, and pianist Geoff Keezer headlining a Jazz Society of Oregon concert at 4 p.m. Sunday in the Portland Hilton Grand Ballroom.

Marty Hughley: 503-221-8383; martyhughley@news.oregonian.com