Cathedral Park Jazz Festival cues up blue notes below bridge

Three days of free music on tap at park

Matt Tabor’s next concert will be a walk in the park.

Pianist for The Blueprints Trio, Tabor will join drummer Dave Averre and bassist Craig Snazelle for the 35th annual Cathedral Park Jazz Festival, Friday through Sunday, July 17 through 19.

The longest-running free jazz festival west of the Mississippi River, the event expects to draw up to 1,000 people its first day, and about 5,000 fans overall, says Mitzi Zilka, president of the event’s owner, the Jazz Society of Oregon. The park is located at North Edison Street and Pittsburg Avenue, on the east shore of the Willamette River.

“It’s pretty prestigious from everything I’ve seen as an audience member,” Tabor says of the fest. “It will be really great to engage with a crowd of that magnitude.”

The Blueprints hit the stage from 3 to 4 p.m. Saturday and play jazz that should appeal to fans of Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea and McCoy Tyner. The last gentleman in that list, particularly, influenced Tabor’s approach to tickling the ivories.

“He was the reason I started playing piano,” Tabor says of Tyner. “I was a drummer, and he has such a percussive attack that I really responded to that style coming from the drums.”

Formed in 2012, the trio has released two CDs, “Blueprints” and last year’s “Evoke.” The latter contains a Tabor arrangement of the Cole Porter tune “Just One Of Those Things.” The Blueprints Trio “all seem to love his stuff,” Tabor says of Porter.

“I think there’s a cleverness to the melody,” he adds of Porter’s songs.

Sax ‘n’ soul

Portland native and Brooklyn resident Hailey Niswanger closes out the Saturday lineup with her PDX Soul band, set to play at 9 p.m. The 25-year-old musician is among the brightest stars in the young jazz world, and says her third album, “PDX Soul,” features her funkier R&B side after her first two albums were written more as straight-ahead jazz.

“It’s just another side of my passion,” she says of PDX Soul, which features 16 Portland musicians. “It’s not like I’m stepping off my path entirely. I’m just making a new trail.”

Her trail has taken the saxophonist to numerous jazz festivals, gigs with Esperanza Spalding, Christian McBride, McCoy Tyner, Maceo Parker and Wynton Marsalis, late-night TV shows hosted by Jimmy Fallon and David Letterman and into the critics’ hearts. In 2013 and 2014, Niswanger was named a “rising star” on alto and soprano saxophone by the famed jazz magazine DownBeat.

Niswanger says although the jazz audience tends to skew older, she sees signs of jazz making a comeback among the younger crowd by fusing into other genres. For example, she says, hip hop performer Kendrick Lamar’s recent album “To Pimp a Butterfly” contains some swingin’ jazzy moments, and she adds that many of her peers are into jazz now.

“It’ll be interesting to see how genres fuse even more in the future,” she says, although she says she doesn’t care if you’re 9 or 90.

“I’m there to play for whoever is going to listen, no matter what age they are.”

And there’s Moore

One of Portland’s hippest cats, singer-trumpeter-harmonica-player Robert Moore, will be expanding beyond his usual live Wildcats combo to bring 15 other musicians on stage for a 5:30 p.m. set Sunday. The big band includes singer Bre Gregg — whom Moore calls “Bonnie Raitt incarnate” — as well as pianist and co-arranger Dan Gaynor. Additionally, Bobby Torres, percussionist for Joe Cocker, Tom Jones and others, will be on stage, as well as Alan Jones, a drummer who’s worked with everyone, including Spalding, Andrew Hill, Leroy Vinnegar, Red Mitchell, Jim Pepper and Miroslav Vitous.

“I’m pretty damn excited,” Moore says. “We’ve taken a lot of our standard Wildcats material and expanded the horn section. You need to listen more carefully to make sure the arranged parts and the lines of the larger ensemble are not conflicting with a solo,” he says. “You need to leave space, you need to play around the space.”

He laughs when asked if he’ll be doing more trumpet-playing than singing.

“I’ve got 15 players to turn to for a solo,” he says. “Why should I hog the damn microphone?”

Among the tunes he’ll perform are cuts off his CD “Outta My Soul,” as well as such numbers as “Top 40,” a Mose Allison tune that pokes fun at the steps one must take to get a hit record, including dressing provocatively. Moore chuckles when asked how funky his onstage getup will look.

“If you think shorts and a Hawaiian shirt are provocative, we should talk.”

CATHEDRAL PARK JAZZ FESTIVAL

Friday, July 17

5-6:30 p.m.: Ben Rice

6:50-8:10 p.m.: La Rhonda Steele

8:30-10 p.m.: The Dover Weinberg Quartet & Master Guitar Jam

Saturday, July 18

Noon to 1 p.m.: Portland Youth Jazz Orchestra

1:30-2:30 p.m.: Chris Parker Quartet

3-4 p.m.: Blueprints Trio

4:30-5 p.m.: Kung Pao Chickens

6-7 p.m.: Pa’lante

7:30-8:30 p.m.: Toni Lincoln Quartet

9-10:15 p.m.: Hailey Niswanger’s PDX Soul

Sunday, July 19

1-2 p.m.: American Music Program

2:30-3:30 p.m.: Todd Bishop Group

4-5 p.m.: Kelly Broadway Quartet

5:30-6:50 p.m.: Robert Moore and The Wildcats

7:20-8:35 p.m.: Paul Creighton Project, Tribute to Stevie Wonder

Web: www.cpjazz.com