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 PROFILE Body and Soul Portland's Creative Music Guild built an avant jazz series out of nothing. Musicians and audiences followed. BY BILL SMITH
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CMG New Year's Show Rich Halley, Rob Blakeslee, Michael Vlatkovich, Dan Schulte, and Billy Mintz It's a Beautiful Pizza (downstairs) 3341 SE Belmont St., 233-5444 9 pm Thursday, Dec. 31 Free for members, $10 non-members For CMG membership information call 772-0772. You probably won't hear "Body and Soul" at a Creative Music Guild-sponsored jazz show--not unless it's performed at breakneck speed by a saxophone quartet or deconstructed beyond recognition. But who needs another "Body and Soul"? The song's been recorded more than 3,000 times. What you will hear at a Creative Music Guild event is music of depth and humor played by astonishingly talented musicians. Portland musicians Rich Halley and Rob Blakeslee founded Creative Music Guild in 1991. In the past eight years, they've presented performers such as Tim Berne, the Either Orchestra, Steve Lacy and the Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet on CMG stages. The two discuss the guild's origins like they play music, each setting up lines and digressions for the other as they improvise on their memories of the organization's history. Debating what officially qualifies as CMG's first sponsored performance, they settle on Halley's Lizard Brothers January '91 record-release party at the Raindance Gallery in Northwest Portland. They both agree on the original impetus. "The motivation was basically selfish, 'cause we wanted a place to play," Blakeslee says half-jokingly. Although other groups found fertile ground in San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, no Portland organization consistently presented original music on the fringes of what is commonly called jazz. Earshot Jazz in Seattle and Vancouver's Coastal Jazz & Blues Society are CMG models. Both organizations promote adventurous original music. Halley and Blakeslee have no objection to the standard jazz repertoire; as Halley says, "I grew up on that stuff." But both felt artists composing original compositions that eschew the Tin Pan Alley songbook were underappreciated and rarely presented to Portland audiences. Initially, all CMG could offer fellow musicians was a place to play and proceeds from the cover charge. That seemed enough for a core group of performers excited for the opportunity to have their music heard. Halley and Blakeslee managed to present 17 shows that first year, impressive by even large-budget standards, let alone those of a small, fledgling nonprofit. The booking schedule in subsequent years has proven just as aggressive. CMG produced roughly 150 shows in eight years. Even more incredible is the consistency and quality of these shows; there is a distinct sonic color and flavor to a CMG-sponsored event. Blakeslee says he looks for artists who say something original. New CMG board president Katie Bretsch sums up an appropriate show as "creative, free improvisation, new composition, jazz-rooted music." CMG relies on grants (from the likes of the Oregon Community Foundation and the Lila Wallace Foundation), membership dues and admission charges. Bretsch notes that the guild has seen attendance increase as more twentysomething Gen-Xers join the old avant-garde stalwarts in the crowd. Bretsch estimates that 400 to 500 Portlanders make up the core audience. The diversity of CMG shows necessitates using different venues to anticipate the various audiences appropriate to each performer. More established acts such as Steve Lacy call for larger venues like the Old Church, whereas others can be held in smaller spots like the Bijou cafe or the Green Onion. In either setting, the Guild strives for what Blakeslee calls an informal concert setting, where the music can be appreciated without the distractions of a club environment. CMGers are excited about summer plans for outdoor concerts at Powell Butte and upcoming educational performances by Halley's Lizard Brothers band in some of the city's schools. Whatever the location, Bretsch emphasizes that the organization wants to continue to grow and find audiences but still keep an intimate scale. She cites the recent Joe McPhee/Michael Bisio performance at the Bijou as a prime example of this intimacy. "Something so special happened with the performers finding an audience that understood exactly what they were doing," she says. This is what every artist longs for and what Creative Music Guild continually manages to provide in its shows, an especially commendable feat considering the alleged non-commerciality of improvised music. It's a difficult balancing act but well worth it if the organization succeeds in establishing a larger audience for what Blakeslee calls "original music we hope will be the standards of tomorrow." Halley agrees. "These are artists that will have their place in history," he adds. Creative Music Guild's work ensures that will be the case and allows the people of Portland to be a part of that history.
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