Travels: Portland Trip

Last week Linda and I decided celebrate the home stretch of my sabbatical and her spring break by taking a short trip up to Portland, Oregon (where she lived for a year or so after college). Although we were really only looking to explore and eat some delicious food, the trip wound up having some real musical highlights for me, as well.

I didn't know any musicians up there beforehand, but since I had heard there were some great players in town, we dug through the newspaper listings and were lucky enough to find a jam session the first night we were there. It was hosted by the great local drummer Ron Steen, and was at a cool little pub called Produce Row. They were nice enough to let me play quite a bit and hear some fine local players like bassists Scott Steed (formerly of the Bay Area) and Lea Ball, among many others.

Kate Davis & I with Ron Steen at Wilf's. More photos here.

Ron also kindly invited me to come by and sit in at his gig two days later at Wilf's, which is in the classic Union Station building downtown (with its flashing "GO BY TRAIN" sign). Also playing were pianist Dan Gaynor, who was a great soloist with a really nice touch, and 17-year-old phenom Kate Davis on bass and vocals, who will definitely be famous before long.

Another definite high point of the trip was my visit to the Monette trumpet and mouthpiece factory, where Dave Monette and his staff have been quietly revolutionizing the brass instrument business for the past few decades. First, Dean Comley treated me to a fascinating tour of the shop, where they make every part of their instruments and mouthpieces, "except for the rubber rings on top of the valve casings." They were just finishing a prototype of a new, hybrid instrument for Ron Miles (it looked a little like a larger, shorter trumpet, and was pitched in G!), which one of the employees demonstrated--it had a great, resonant sound.

Once we finished the tour, Dave Monette himself came in and gave me an impromptu clinic on the concepts behind his mouthpieces--perhaps the most crucial point being that standard trumpet mouthpieces were originally sized for trumpets in the key of A, and are therefore too long to "slot" correctly over the range of the instrument without requiring the player to make body adjustments which introduce unhelpful tension and effort. He asked me to a) play notes over three octaves with my old mouthpiece and posture, then b) had me repeat them with my tuning slide pulled out until my horn was in the key of A, then c) pushed the slide back in, and had me repeat them again with a Monette mouthpiece and the posture and breathing adjustments he suggested. The results won me over immediately.

After that, all that remained was for Dean to very patiently hand me a long succession of mouthpieces while we looked for the right combination of comfort, sound, range, and flexibility--a process which made me pity the captive audience of guys working in the shop, but which finally helped me find "the one," which I fortunately settled on with just enough time left for the short drive to the airport and to make our flight home. (And although I was expecting an "adjustment period," I used the new mouthpiece on Ben Stolorow's CD release party gig, and it felt great.) For any trumpeters visiting the Portland area, I highly recommend a making an appointment to visit to the shop, even if you're not a current customer of theirs. But I warn you, you may walk out a believer.

Finally, I should mention another great thing for musicians about Portland--its wide variety of used record stores. I made it to just a handful, and came home with way too many new (used) albums and CDs--all reasonably priced, and (most importantly) sales tax-free. My favorite of those I visited was the funereally named Vinyl Resting Place, way out in the North part of town. Fortunately my stack of finds (including Jimmy Rowles, Charles Lloyd with Keith Jarrett, Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz, Toots Theilmans with Joanne Brackeen, Paul Motian, etc.) wasn't quite heavy enough to push the suitcase over the limit--but it was close.