Safeway Waterfront Blues Fest To Celebrate 20 Years

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The largest blues festival on the West Coast and second largest in the nation will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year.

The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, to take place July 4-July 8 in Portland, Ore., includes four stages and 125 artist performances, including the Neville Brothers, Koko Taylor, Joan Armatrading and the Blind Boys of Alabama. The event also features nine Delta Music Experience Blues Cruises along the Willamette River.

The festival is produced by and as a benefit for Oregon Food Bank. Daily admission is a donation of $8 per person per day and two cans of food. All festival proceedings benefit Oregon Food Bank’s work to eliminate hunger and its root causes in Oregon and southwestern Washington.



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    Wilson’s ability to connect to audiences helped her to win two Grammy awards and multiple other accolades. She was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2022.

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    “The love from the jazz and music community restored my faith in humanity,” Walia wrote in an online post upon his release from detention at an ICE facility.

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    Bertoncini was a specialist and advocate for the nylon-string acoustic guitar, turning down high-profile opportunities that were unsuited to the sound and techniques that he used with that instrument.

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    A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.

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    “It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”