Show Review: Shirley Nanette and Friends at Billy Webb Elks Lodge

Surely you're aware of Shirley Nanette.

No?

Shirley is a vocalist, one of the rare species to be native to Portland. She usually sings jazz (Mount Hood Festival of Jazz, Jimmy Mak's) but has been a guest vocalist with the Oregon Symphony on occasion since 1981. She was inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame in 2007. Oregon Art Beat ran a segment about her a couple of years ago.

Why haven't you heard of her then?

As it turns out, she doesn't record much: just Never Coming Back from 1973 (listen to my favorite track—"Sometimes"), See You Later in 1992, and Starting Here, Starting Now from 2008. You could very well miss her completely unless you frequent the Billy Webb Elks Lodge on Sunday nights.

Which is exactly what I did this Sunday evening!

After years passing by the intriguing building, three years ago I went inside the Billy Webb Elks Lodge on a historical tour of North Portland. (Did you know? Portland's most happening jazz club of the 1940s-1950s was just across the street!) Inside, the recently restored Elks Lodge looked gorgeous, and I vowed to one day check out the bar that was open to the public.

A few weeks ago, I discovered Shirley on the intertubes and navigated to her website, where I saw that "Shirley Nanette and Friends" plays regularly at the Billy Webb Elks Lodge.

When I needed to organize a happy hour celebration, a cunning plan was conceived!

Shirley and her friends perform in the ballroom, across the foyer from the lodge bar (where a great time can be had if you're a little early for the show). The ballroom is spacious and sports a hardwood dance floor, a modest stage and satellite bar. Onstage, an elk head serves as benevolent overlord.

Sunday, Shirley introduced the evening by noting "this is where friends meet and greet each other." On this night, Shirley's "friends" included Dan Gaynor on piano, Bill Athens on double bass, and Tim Rap on drums. Rich Arnold joined Shirley onstage for a quick-tempoed duet about halfway through the second set. But Shirley's friends also pack the audience—the ballroom held 50 people, most of whom were specifically there to see Shirley perform.

And what a nice woman! After the first set, she made her way around the room talking to every single person in the audience. Whether they were there for the first time (like me) or were old friends, they were personally greeted and conversed with.

As a performer, Shirley is a crowd-pleaser as well. Her voice is glassy smooth, she's a pleasure to listen to and watch, her warmth emanates from the stage, and she highly encourages audience participation. In addition to an audience sing-along, she sang a few song requests, including a dynamite "How Glad I Am," followed in short order by Etta James' signature piece, "At Last." She closed out her second set with "Ain't Misbehavin'," jovially trying on a variety of character voices including jazz icons Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday.

Perhaps best of all, there is no cover charge to see Shirley and the band! If you go though, make sure to buy a drink or two. Check the schedule on Shirley Nanette's website and plan on a great evening when you head out to see her.

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Portland's Fair Trade Music Campaign in Billboard

Today, Billboard magazine's website published a rather astute analysis of Portland's Fair Trade Music Campaign entitled: Weighing Fair Trade As It Hits Portland's Music Scene. The story made its unlikely way to the webpages of Billboard via a a story in the Nashville Cream, which was based on a nice spread in last week's Willamette Week.

Fair Trade Music (formerly Fair Pay to Play) is a campaign led by local musicians to establish a minimum pay guarantee for musicians playing in commercial clubs, and I should divulge that I have been involved with the campaign for a while.

The main idea behind the campaign is that we're asking venue owners to partner with us and agree to pay a minimum guaranteed wage to performers. There are five tiers to the pay scale, so that many music venues from large-capacity clubs to coffee shops can participate at a level most suitable to their budget and crowd capacity. These participating venues would get a sticker with the FTM logo (above) on it, as well as promotion from our campaign on our website, and in our campaign releases and literature.

In addition to assuring that musicians get compensated fairly, however, the system is also an attempt to reinvigorate the live music scene by improving the reliability and quality of performances, which the Billboard analysis caught onto quite well. Current business models tend to place all risk on the heads of bands, leaving the club without a lot of reason to spend any time or money on promoting their club or establishing their own draw as a quality venue. There's also not a lot of motivation to better cater local shows to a wider local audience. With a higher degree of professionalism on the part of both bands and clubs, there would be more impetus to start shows on time, deliver quality performances to patrons. And perhaps, as the article suggests, and as we've previously discussed here on CIMTB, venues might re-schedule show times to reach a greater number of potential music fans.

I'm excited to see the campaign receiving such widespread coverage, and even moreso, I'm excited to see coverage that taps into the idea that creating a stronger live music scene will require changes and creativity, abandoning the idea that exploiting performers to sell a few beers to their friends is a viable business model, and acknowledging that a great music scene requires professional behavior and quality on the part of both clubs and musicians, and an effort to excite local audiences.

For more information on the campaign, visit http://www.fairtrademusicpdx.org

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olympia tour diary

As you may or may not know, last night New Century Schoolbook played in Olympia, WA. And here's what it was like :
We drove up in the afternoon (fortunately me, Johnny, Marlin and Zach all had the day off though Steve didn't and had to drive up later) and met up with Johnny's wonderful friend Ian, who was letting us sleep at his (big, fancy and totally awesome) house. We stopped by the fish tale brew pub to have some beer and food and then stopped by Le Voyeur to ask when we should load in. They pretty much said we should do whatever we wanted and so we decided to walk down to the water and come back later.
Later happened, and we met the other bands, Dos Prompt, who were playing their first show (and I hope to hear more of them) Shoebox Scrap, and Jenny Jenkins, who organized the show and was totally friendly and helpful.
Dos Prompt opened, and played some delightful music with the help of laptop, bass guitar, and uke with vocals. My favourite was "This is what it feels like.. when you're masturbating.. on the internet.. to someone masturbating." I almost died laughing.
Shoebox Scrap, from Inland Empire, CA followed with some mellow guitar songs. then we went on. And sorry Portland, I really love you, but in Olympia, when we asked people to slow dance, they DID. So they are better audiences and you all really need to redeem yourselves. Jenny Jenkins closed with some gorgeous vocals and ukelele. All in all the night was quite enjoyable. Everyone in the audience was super nice, including the other performers. However, there is one gauche behavior I must call out - right before Jenny went on, a girl asked Shoebox Scrap's travelling partner if she could please move their merch so "our friend could sit there". Never mind the fact that her friend never came to sit there, it's hella rude to ask a band, who came all the way from California to make music for you for no money, to put their merch away to make room for your friend's butt. (this is totally my opinion, Shoebox didn't say anything. But I feel pretty strongly about it.)
I am proud to say that not counting CD sales, we made a whole five dollars from donations, even though Jenny sent the jar around five or six times, and though it was touch and go for a while, I managed not to get too drunk, bone any groupies, or get in a bike crash while I was in olympia (although I did get in one before I left) and on the way home we met a baby and a cat.

P.S. Dear Portlandites, if you want to show me and the rest of New Century Schoolbook that you can slow dance and be as cool as the folks from the frozen north, or if you just want to hear some good music, we are playing tonight at Exit Only (1121 N Loring) which is an All Ages Show and Sunday at Kelly's Olympian.
<3 Love you
Amber Dawn

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