DO YOU LIKE JAZZ?

The weekend of April 24-26 was to have been a high note for the Mt. Hood campus.

Since 2004, MHCC has longed for the return of its annual, full-menu Jazz Festival. With naming rights and sponsorships secured once again, this year, big plans were made for a campuswide event that brought together jazz bands from 75 high schools and middle schools across Oregon and beyond – as well as professional performing artists – to participate in three days of live music and master classes.

Unfortunately for MHCC and the Gresham and local jazz communities, COVID-19 pushed that version of the festival back, to April 23-25, 2021.
However, that didn’t Dan Davey, director of jazz studies at MHCC, from organizing several recorded/shared live performances and master classes, which were posted on the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival’s Facebook page.

Over the course of Saturday, April 25, dozens of videos featuring performances from local Portland musicians, the MHCC jazz band, and faculty members were uploaded. They included master classes from some of the Pacific Northwest’s most famous contemporary figures in jazz, such as legendary drummer Mel Brown, Portland’s own “Godfather of Jazz.”

“We were pretty bummed out when we had to cancel,” Davey told enthusiasts on a Festival Facebook page video. Special artists he’d lined up for this year included noted trombonist Wycliffe Gordon and saxophone player Ben Wendel.

Yet, Davey told festival fans to anticipate a return to the big stage next spring, while the videos helped share the love of jazz with student performers and others, now immortalized online.

“Find the silver lining, and we’ll see you soon,” Davey told the Facebook audience.