Having successfully re-entered the land of the Red, White and Blue – there was a bad moment at U.S. Customs with an officer who seemed to be making things hard for our pianist Takeshi, who is Japanese – we smoothly rolled for five hours through Washington’s gorgeous Olympic Peninsula, enroute to Hailey’s hometown, Portland, Oregon.


Each of these folks has so much music on their iPod, it’s like traveling with the Library of Congress stuffed into the van. Lots of superb jazz, Ali Farka Toure, and James Brown helped make the trip go by, and the driver alert.

Hailey Niswanger

Portland is fortunate to have a 24-hour jazz station, KMHD-FM, and Friday afternoon, before their performance at Jimmy Mak’s jazz club, the band dropped into the station to talk up the show. While Hailey and Aaron were playing a duet on-air for announcer Lynn Darroch and the radio audience, we found ourselves talking with Chuck Israels, he of the Bill Evans Trio and countless seminal jazz recordings. Chuck has just moved to Portland, and after hearing the duet, decided to come to the show!

HAILEY NISWANGER

To find out more about Berklee’s summer concert series, please visit us at Berklee.edu. There, you can find out more about your favorite artists and where you can see them next!