In celebration of their thirty-three year musical partnership, Mel Brown and Gordon Lee reunite to perform Lee’s original works arranged for this performance with the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble.
Sunday, August 18th, 2019
Doors open: 7:55 PM
Event begins: 8:10 PM
Festival link: montavillajazzfest.com
Artist Bio: Mel Brown spent many years as a Motown staff drummer, performing with the likes of Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, and the Temptations. He returned Portland and his jazz roots in the early 1980’s, becoming revered as Portland’s “Gentleman of Jazz.”
Gordon Lee is a pianist composer, arranger, and educator who has travelled the world performing in Paris, Germany, Vienna, Tokyo, Lima, and Istanbul. Lee has been a featured performer at the Mt. Hood Festival of Jazz, the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, the JFK Center for the Performing Arts, and the Smithsonian Institute for Native American Art.
The Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble is a 12-piece jazz chamber orchestra which commissions and performs original works by its members and by other jazz composers in the Portland music community and beyond.
About Montavilla Jazz Festival:
The mission of Montavilla Jazz Festival is not only to bolster Portland’s dynamic jazz culture, but also to enrich the local community. Like the neighborhood that serves as its home, MJF is a progressive, diverse, locally minded event that offers Montavilla residents an opportunity to come together, form connections and plug into Portland jazz.
Montavilla Jazz Festival earmarks a portion of each ticket sold to support jazz education programming in Montavilla public schools. Montavilla Jazz Festival is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.