Tarik Abouzied photo by Daniel Sheehan
Friday, May 18, 7:30pm
Tula’s Restaurant & Jazz Club
$20
In a spectacular Northwest grouping, renowned Seattle drummer and Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year nominee Tarik Abouzied calls on old friend Joe Doria on Hammond B-3 and Portland guitar legend Dan Balmer for a memorable night of music on May 18 at Tula’s Restaurant & Jazz Club.
Renowned for his taut, tough backbeats, Abouzied is a veteran of such celebrated Seattle jazz-funk outfits as McTuff and Happy Orchestra. Abouzied has produced six albums collectively between his groups, which also include instrumental funk septet Pocket Change, and modern jazz-fueled Hardcoretet. Currently, the drummer produces new big band Happy Orchestra, which was awarded 4Culture’s 2015 Arts Project Grant and won Earshot Jazz’s 2017 Alternative Jazz Group of the Year.
With roots together in Seattle’s hallmark funk/jazz Hammond organ trio McTuff, Abouzied pairs up again with organ icon Joe Doria. The go-to keys master is hardly in need of an introduction, continually stunning his audiences with his ability to add depth and dimension to every song he performs. Doria is a backbone member to a handful of groups including his own Joe Doria Trio, The Drunken Masters, Skerik’s Syncopated Taint Septet, and Spellbinder, featuring renowned drummer Michael Shrieve of Santana.
One of Portland’s most acclaimed music educators and master disciples of his instrument – Dan Balmer – completes the trio. Balmer impresses as one of only five Oregonians to be honored with membership in both The Oregon Music Hall of Fame and the Jazz Society of Oregon Hall of Fame, and has been hailed as “the model of what a contemporary guitarist should be” (Los Angeles Times).
–Ed., courtesy of Tarik Abouzied
