D’Vonne Lewis photo by Daniel Sheehan

10th Annual Pony Boy Records Jazz Picnic
Sunday, September 8, 1pm-4pm
Sand Point Magnuson Park Community Center Brig
Sand Point Way NE & 74th Street NE
Free

Billed as unplugged, unscheduled and unstaged, the Pony Boy Records Jazz Picnic scales back to its jazz-family roots in its tenth year. In a decade, the event has grown in popularity, and production scale, but, picnic producer, drummer and Pony Boy Records founder Greg Williamson is re-kindling the event’s original intention as a simple gathering of friends, fans and musicians in the park. Performing this year: Jay Thomas’ Neo-Boogaloo group, the Greg Williamson Quartet, guest vocalists hosted by Bernie Jacobs and Diana Page and the Pony Boy All-Star Big Band. Bring a pot-luck dish and enjoy the music. More information at www.ponyboyrecords.com.

Dave Lewis Revue II
Friday, September 13, 7pm
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute
104 17th Avenue South
$30-$35

Son Dave Lewis, Jr., and grandson D’Vonne Lewis present, in partnership with Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, an evening honoring legendary kin, Northwest organist Dave Lewis, a pioneer in desegregating Seattle’s entertainment and nightclub scene and an enterprising figure in Seattle’s 1950s and 60s R&B scene. Lewis (1938-1998) found mid-sixties radio success with single “Little Green Thing,” which also featured on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. The Dave Lewis trio behind that hit went on to record a Little Green Thing LP on Herb Alpert’s A&M Records. 

The influence of the Lewis family on Northwest music goes even further, Steve Griggs reports in “D’Vonne Lewis: Reveling in the Music Industry” (February 2012): David Eugene Lewis, Sr., played guitar and gave musical tips to Jimi Hendrix and neighbor Quincy Jones; Ulysses Lewis was a partner in the Paramount Theatre, which hosted R&B shows in the 1980s. The legacy continues tonight at the LHPAI with live music by Seattle musicians Delvon Lamarr (organ and keyboard), Skerik (saxophone), Andy Coe (guitar), Darrius Willrich (piano), Evan Flory-Barnes (bass), and D’Vonne Lewis (drums) and Dave Lewis, Jr. (emcee and vocals). Tickets are available at brownpapertickets.com, search Dave Lewis Revue.

Tom Varner photo by Daniel Sheehan

Tom Varner Performing Don Cherry’s Complete Communion
Saturday, September 14, 8pm
Chapel Performance Space
4649 Sunnyside Avenue North, Fourth Floor
$5-$15, sliding scale

One of the hallmarks of artistry in jazz is that the music can find new life years beyond the time of the composer. Some malleability of jazz improvisation allows for reshaping or reinterpreting a composition by a contemporary artist, who might infuse it with knowledge and experience reflecting their time. 

New Jersey native Tom Varner, in Seattle since 2005, has taken on the challenge of performing Complete Communion, a comparatively under-recognized 1965 suite written by the late trumpeter and composer Don Cherry. Varner, horn player and assistant professor of jazz performance at Cornish College, co-leads a quintet with saxophonist Eric Barber, 2009 Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award Instrumentalist of the Year. Those familiar with Barber’s MetriLodic trio can confirm his credentials for the Communion assignment.

Varner, who attended the New England Conservatory and has played or recorded with Bobby Previte, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Watson and Steve Lacy, as well as composers La Monte Young and George Gruntz, has already recorded much of Communion on his own 2000 release for Omnitone, Second Communion. 

“I feel free enough to do it like Cherry,” he told me in a phone interview. “I want to explore [Cherry’s] concept of musical beauty.” 

For this writer and, perhaps, others, Cherry is best known for his groundbreaking work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet from 1958-1961, where his lyrical yet whimsical trumpet style was a perfect fit for Coleman’s musical concepts. 

I asked Varner why he wanted to perform Complete Communion. “It’s an underappreciated work,” he told me. “I also wanted to stretch the piece and break from being a composer, and re-see it in a new way.” Performing Cherry’s work on French horn is, of course, a stretch in and of itself. But, according to critic Howard Reich, Varner’s Second Communion features “urgency and freshness” and “exquisitely well-crafted, gloriously unfettered dialogue among all the players … tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby, bassist Cameron Brown and percussionist Matt Wilson.” (Varner tells me that Cameron Brown subbed for original Cherry quintet bassist Bo Stief for a time.) 

The ensemble for the Chapel show will be patterned after the Cherry quintet that toured Europe in 1966, shortly after the original Communion was recorded. In addition to Cherry and Stief, that group included Gato Barbieri on tenor sax, Karl Berger on vibes and Aldo Romano on drums. In addition to Barber, Varner’s group includes John Semen on bass, Ben Thomas on vibes and Paul Kikuchi on drums. 

Like Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry was an original. That new life in his music can be found in the interpretation of players such as Tom Varner and Eric Barber is testament to the artistic mastery of each.

– Fred Kellogg, Free Jazz with Fred, KAOS 89.3 FM, Olympia, kaosradio.org

Thomas Marriott’s “Urban Folklore”
Wednesday, September 18, 8pm
The Royal Room
$15-$20

Thomas Marriott debuts a new lengthy composition for quartet, “Urban Folklore,” at the Royal Room. This first venture in extended, composed work for Marriott features collaborators Orrin Evans (piano), Eric Revis (bass) and Donald Edwards (drums). The group moves into the studio the next day.

Marriott says that “Urban Folklore” is a musical collection of our personal yet commonly shared stories of frustrations, fears, hopes and joys – the stories we tell to connect to each other. Marriott is sharing his reflections of recent years, in music stories. As such, no Kickstarter campaigns, no grant money, just a live experience together, and a forthcoming release, with a great band – a personal project, experienced with the public, as are our everyday lives.

Opening for the quartet: the Bull-Horns Sextet, an all-star group of students primarily from Roosevelt High School, with trumpeters John Otten and Noah Halpern, drummer Luke Woodle, pianist Gus Carns, saxophonist Jory Tindal and bassist Will Langlie-Miletic. All ages. More information at theroyalroomseattle.com.

September in the Region

Bellwether Jazz Festival
Saturday, September 7, 1pm
Bellwether on the Bay
16 Bellwether Way, Squalicum Harbor, Bellingham
Free

Presented by Jud Sherwood’s The Jazz Project, a jazz support organization for Bellingham and Whatcom County, the Bellwether Jazz Festival features the Christopher Woitach Quartet, with Portland guitarist and composer Christopher Woitach, trombonist John Moak, bassist Jeff Johnson, and festival producer and drummer Jud Sherwood; the Gail Pettis Quartet, with pianist Darin Clendenin, bassist Johnson and drummer Sherwood; Blues Union, a soul groove band fronted by B-3 organist and vocalist John Carswell, saxophonist Josh Cook, guitarist Woitach and drummer Sherwood; and the Jovino Santos Neto Quinteto, led by three-time Latin Grammy nominee Jovino Santos Neto, pianist, composer, arranger, Cornish College instructor and disciple of the great Hermeto Pascoal. The quintet features Santos Neto on piano, flute and melodica; Ben Thomas on vibes; Chuck Deardorf on bass, Mark Ivester on drums and Jeff Busch on percussion. The festival is free and family-friendly, with a beer and wine garden on-site. More information at jazzproject.org.

North Bend Jazz Walk
Saturday, September 14, 6pm-midnight
North Bend
$10-$25

Fifteen venues, some eighteen ensembles, dozens and dozens of performers – this third annual North Bend Jazz Walk is an incredible jazz celebration at the foot of Mt. Si. Highlights: At the North Bend Theatre, the Pony Boy All-Star Big Band and Future Jazz Heads, students from the jazz programs at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie and Twin Falls Middle School in North Bend – these kids jam with the pros every week at Boxley’s! At Boxley’s, the Randy Halberstadt Quintet, with Mark Taylor, alto saxophone; Thomas Marriott, trumpet; Randy Halberstadt, piano; Jeff Johnson, bass; Gary Hobbs, drums. The Valley Center Stage double bill with Jay Thomas’ Neo-Boogaloo group, featuring wunderkind guest Zachary Kellogg, flute, and the Diana Page Quartet. A Milo Petersen and Steve Griggs guitar-and-sax duo at George’s Bakery, a Chuck Deardorf and Ted Brancato bass-and-piano duo at Replicator Graphics, and the Bernie Jacobs Quartet at the Pourhouse (the night’s only 21+ performance). Duos, quartets, quintets, big bands, Seattle artists, regional artists – North Bend, the region’s jazz test kitchen. Details at northbendjazzwalk.com.

Pearl Django – Ryan Hoffman, Michael Gray, Troy Chapman, Rick Leppanen

DjangoFest Northwest
September 18-22
Whidbey Island Center for the Arts, Langley
$32-$70

What began as a kind of conference of Internet Django-philes is now a gypsy jazz festival with a home at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts. For five days, the island village of Langley turns into a round-the-clock gypsy jazz jam session, with a mix of workshops, concerts and after-hours hangs with American, European and gypsy musicians.

Caravan w/ Daniel Lapp and Marc Atkinson & Denis Chang Quartet; Kruno Spisic w/ special guest Filip Novosel & Brishen w/ Quinn Bachand and Richard Moody; Pearl Django & Olli Soikkeli; John Jorgenson Quintet w/ Tcha Limberger & Fishtank Ensemble; The New Hot Club of America w/ Gonzalo Bergara & Trio Dinicu w/ Tommy Davy; Fapy Lafertin w/ Tcha Limberger, Dave Kelbie, Simon Planting and Ryan Hoffman; 3 Cent Stamp & Djammin’ in Djangley w/ Fapy Lafertin, Tcha Limberger, John Jorgenson, Dave Kelbie, Olli Soikkeli, Simon Planting, Jason Anick, Ben Powell, Leah Zeger. Details at djangofest.com.