Skip to main content
The latest chapter in the wild, messy history of The 1905, the city’s only venue dedicated to jazz music, opened on a positive note. New owners swooped in earlier this year to rescue the club after serious mismanagement forced it to close at the end of 2023, and they reopened the doors with a flourish. Operations have been streamlined, necessary adjustments were made to the menu, and most importantly, the schedule is packed with local talent.
Last Wednesday, no one was happier about these developments than the nattily attired 79-year-old behind the drum kit on The 1905′s cozy stage. The legend that is Mel Brown spoke, with some emotion, about growing up near the club and how important it will be for the current crop of young people in the neighborhood to see their peers and elders performing there.
Wise words that I hope the people at The 1905 take to heart. But for the moment, they are at least doing right by Portland’s musical history by giving Brown a well-earned spotlight. He bathed in that glow. Performing with his regular comrades, saxophonist Renato Caranto and organist King Louie Pain, Brown and his ever-present grin kept to a comfortable set list of soulful standards—”Harlem Nocturne,” Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” among them—that let him settle into steady grooves and take off on a strutting solo when the spirit moved him. It allowed him to remain the center of attention even as the other players were taking these familiar melodies apart and reconstructing them with a modernist skronk or swooping keyboard runs. Brown is simply that compelling, with stories for days from his time backing up and interacting with Motown greats. He promised to tell more when he returned to The 1905 next. I can’t wait to hear them.