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THE BIG BANG OF BEBOP : CHARLIE PARKER AT 103
BIAMP PORTLAND JAZZ FESTIVAL | 20TH ANNIVERSARY
Friday, February 24 | 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Biamp Portland Jazz Festival
THE BIG BANG OF BEBOP
CHARLIE PARKER AT 103
JAZZ LECTURE SERIES
10:00 am – 11:00 am
PSU, Room 47
FREE Community Event
He is our progenitor, the reason why and how this music sounds like it does today. The innovations and freedoms he brought forth in an astonishingly brief period of time—from 1945 to ’54, less than ten years—serve as the dividing line between jazz being regarded as a popular, dance-focused music, and being revered as a form of serious self-expression. With the breath from his body and a bit of metal tubing called the alto saxophone, he initiated a seismic cultural shift and proved himself to be an instrument of change.
ASHLEY KAHN is a GRAMMY® winning music historian, author and producer, a wearer of hats, is wary of autocrats, loves jazz but is allergic to cats. He co-wrote Carlos Santana’s autobiography The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story To Light, and has written titles on legendary recordings Kind of Blue by Miles Davis and A Love Supreme by John Coltrane, and a record label: The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. His most recent book, George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters was published in August 2020. He teaches at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music.
Ashley has been our Portland Jazz Fest esteemed guest interviewer since 2020 in conversations with Gary Bartz, Makaya McCraven, Archie Shepp, Brian Jackson, Stanley Jordan, Harold López Nussa, Judith Hill, director John Scheinfeld and more.
