Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble - From Maxville to Vanport (2018)

From Maxville to Vanport celebrates the history of two towns that reveal distinctive viewpoints of the state’s under-represented Black history. Looking honestly at the prejudice these people faced, the album celebrates their resilience, courage, and important contributions to Oregon through jazz, R&B, and blues.
The music, composed by Weiss with lyrics by poet S. Renee Mitchell, is performed by the PJCE with vocalist Marilyn Keller. The project also includes two film shorts by filmmaker Kalimah Abioto scored by Weiss that will be available with the digital download of the album. PJCE’s Executive Director, Douglas Detrick, served as the artistic director of the project.


THE SONGS AND FILMS OF FROM MAXVILLE TO VANPORT
Oregon is seen as a beacon of hope in the album’s initial blues-influenced song, “Oregon Sounds Like Freedom,” which immediately introduces the power of Marilyn Keller’s voice. The opening fanfare transitions into an Afro-Cuban 12/8 rhythm where Rob Davis’s muscular yet lithe tenor sax solo adds an insistent accent to the hopeful and occasionally humorous lyrics.

In the poignant “What Do Your Trees Tell You,” Weiss introduces dramatic chords that reappear throughout the piece as a theme of “struggle.” With lyrics reminiscent of “Strange Fruit,” the trees themselves take on new meaning, symbolizing the chance for a brighter future rather than the brutal reality of lynchings in the South. Clarinets, bass clarinet, and flute add an orchestral character to this piece, while Douglas Detrick’s soaring flugelhorn solo contrasts beautifully with Keller’s deeply grounded vocal.

Previously, little was known of these small populations of Black Oregonians and even less about the lives of the women in Maxville and Vanport. In the Motown-esque song, “Woman’s Work,” “sleep is like a tourist,” a fleeting presence in the lives of the hardworking women of Maxville. John Moak’s trombone solo gets funky before the instrumental ending evokes the sleep deprivation Mitchell describes in the lyrics.
In the first film score, “Marjorie,” the main character is the wife of a Maxville logger who imagines a glamorous life for herself in the city as a musician accompanied by Jasnam Daya Singh’s swirling piano arpeggios and Mieke Bruggeman’s wistful baritone sax. Weiss expands on the fanfare from the first song at a slower tempo here that makes his chords glisten.

“Stacked Deck Hand” is a down-home blues tune that asks how one can win in cards or life when the deck is stacked against you. It has all the swagger and soul that you expect from a swing-era blues lyric, much like those shipyard workers in Vanport might have heard during WWII. But it also goes deeper, celebrating family, perseverance, and faith. Here, Weiss highlights Farnell Newton’s technical facility and bluesy voice-like timbres on the trumpet.

“Water,” the second film score/track, opens on a boy playing outdoors—climbing and running, playing marbles, and boxing while revisiting the album’s fanfare opening playfully reimagined as a fast waltz. The mood quickly shifts as the boy sees rushing waters that foreshadow the Vanport Flood of 1948. Then music sinks into the unusual chords from top of “What Do Your Trees Tell You,” and we see the boy as a man, remembering rather than anticipating the flood of emotions he felt at the loss of his home.

Rising from this adversity, “From Maxville to Vanport,” the closing piece of the album, marvels at the resilience of people who gave up everything they had for an uncertain future and wound up making history. “Oregon didn't want black folks to stay/ But we planted roots here anyway,” the song says. Keller shines while contemporary, unconventional orchestration techniques master the challenge of a 13-member ensemble playing at a rubato tempo. Weiss combines the earlier "struggle" theme with the optimistic melodic contour from "Oregon Sounds Like Freedom." Now unified as a single musical idea, they suggest the coexistence of struggle and hope as we address racism in our nation.