Online Exclusive: Jazz, food, jazz

I jump off the streetcar, cross the busy corner of Northwest 10th and Everett Streets and enter the dimly lit, suave sanctuary of a club where sophistication saturates the atmosphere from floor to ceiling; a soft jazz record plays in the background; I am greeted with smooth grace. I trade the man at the front desk $10 for a stamp on my hand and walk into Jimmy Mak’s, one of three surviving jazz clubs in Portland.

It’s Friday night and the house is booked; every table, save four small round tables in back, has a little reservation note taped to the center candle—unusual for any other weekday. I am shown to one of these little black tables, each glowing with the light of its tiny candle, and I open up the menu. The selection is a strange array of Mediterranean food, mostly Greek, with pinches of American, Middle Eastern and Vietnamese. I order lentil soup and falafel. The service is decent. The waitresses are all dressed in black, hair neatly pulled back or cut short, and swift and subtle as the wind. They look nice against the red velvet decor of the club.

The audience consists mostly of middle-aged women and men who are sparkling and glowing in the candlelight that flickers like romance across their faces. Occasionally, and especially as the night grew darker, more 20-somethings showed up, wandering the venue holding dewy clear glasses stuffed with ice cubes and little red straws.

An old spunky woman, whose hair is long and white and tied to the top of her head with a black scrunchie, enters the club wearing a faded blue silk jacket and pink John Lennon shades. She greets almost everyone as she walks in with an air of careless confidence and a genuine interest. A waitress points her back to the table next to mine and in a squealing-crunchy-Janis Joplin-kind-of-voice, says, “Oh yeah, great! Right back there in the corner. Cool. Great.” I peek at the reservation note taped to the candle on her table: Nancy King.

Here to support her fellow musicians, world-famous jazz singer Nancy King slides into the seat next to me and without the slightest bit of subtlety starts hollering on about the lights being too bright back here. Her face is a thousand wrinkles, undoubtedly created by the intensely enthusiastic bobbing facial expressions she utilizes during conversation. I immediately want to dip my toes into her soul.

“I’ve known these guys,” King says to me, “since they were little kids! And look at ’em now! It’s just too cool.” She raises her eyebrows and looks me in eye, saying, “I turned 70 this year, you know.”

Paul Mazzio, trumpet player for the Alan Jones Sextet (whose reunion is the excitement of tonight’s show), walks past our tables and King leans towards me. “That right there,” she says, “is the best trumpet player in the world.” Mazzio is so humbly talking to guests, one would never suspect his unreal power behind the horn.

Next, John Gross, tenor sax player, smiles at King and the two lean across the small round table to kiss and embrace. King’s face lights up with wrinkles and excitement as she tells him all about the new album she’s working on, all the musicians she’s collaborating with and that it should be out in the next few months. The energy amongst these people is overwhelmingly sanguine.

Finally the lights dim and the Alan Jones Sextet, one member at a time, step up to their instruments and settle into the mood. The glowing people of the audience have finished eating and hush into a militaristic trance. The first song is smiles and chops, foreshadowing the great show about to unfold before our ears. The whole time King is sitting behind me, oh-yeahing and mm-hmming, nodding and hollering at her friends on stage. The music is beyond words. These musicians are playing complex melodies and rhythms with that admirable jazzy ease and the audience is glued.

After being completely blown away by the tunes they beat out of their instruments, the band finishes and I can finally breathe and awaken my mind from its hypnotic state. King then introduces me to members of the band and I proceed to tell them my favorite parts: Gross’ solo during the third tune when he created, so mysteriously, the most unreal sounds from his tenor sax; Randy Porter’s solo towards the end where he joked around with some ragtime ditty; Alan Jones’ beast of a drum solo that led so smoothly into a popping horn melody. They nod and say thanks, sipping beers and smiling.

The night has ended. I walk out onto the streets that have become steamy, dark and quiet, where old rain cools the pavement with an air of finality. I leave feeling refreshed and inspired. Jimmy Mak’s is place of both community and celebration and though neither the food nor the service are impressive, it is a venue that provides an appropriate environment for high quality jazz performances.