Music from a Corner of the World

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Upon hearing of my impending trip to Portugal, someone grinned knowingly and muttered, "Ah, the California of Europe." What seemed an odd, glib statement has a new meaning, having been there, eaten and drunk and experienced that, in this remarkable, mighty, and compact country. It's true: Portugal's clement climate, beach-hugging towns, and vegetation (they too have the familiar, unstoppable ice plant) will remind Californians of home. And they even have chronic wildfire troubles, although we're far ahead of them in that department so far this summer.

A primary reason for the trip was culture-business, attending the almost 30-year-old Estoril Jazz Festival, in greater Lisbon, and its brand new offshoot festival on the south coast, the "Allgarve Jazz Festival" (a market-wise misspelling of the tourism haven in the southern Algarve region). In another Portuguese-California connection—especially in a place like Santa Barbara—the Algarve struggles with tensions between promoting tourism and preserving the natural beauty that nurtured that tourism in the first place. The Allgarve Festival is a work-in-progress, a moveable feast that included soul-jazzy Lucky Peterson in a modest soccer (football) stadium in Portimão, the currently kinder, gentler, and more commercial Herbie Hancock in Loule (with Chris Potter and Dave Holland; he was sounding better than his too-poppy Campbell Hall show last fall), and the stunning and innovative Portuguese vocalist Maria João in Sagres.

Portugal, like most countries in Europe, has had a long and impassioned interest in jazz, even boasting the "oldest jazz club in Europe," Lisbon's cool must-see basement venue the Hot Clube. Estoril festival head Duarte Mendonça is part of the old guard of Euro-jazz festival promoters. His tastes lean towards smart mainstream jazz: the Estoril line-up included Bobby Hutcherson, a solid show by Branford Marsalis's quartet, and Lewis Nash's Jazz the Philharmonic redux, in a large tent in Cascais, a former fishing village turned swanky seaport outpost.

For someone new to Portugal, the jazz factor—mostly American artists on the summer festival circuit, with the exception of João—the place was The Thing. Portugal is a raggedy geographical rectangle the size of Indiana. It enjoys an ambivalent relationship with the continent, seemingly added on like an extra puzzle piece. For its smallish size, though, Portugal has left a big global footprint. Just as Norwegians still cling proudly to ancient Viking lore and heft (leaving out the brutality part), Portugal is still keenly aware of its legacy as one of the first seafaring colonial adventuring nations. One keeps being reminded of the "Age of Discovery" hundreds of years past.

Take the starkly beautiful, end-of-the-world town of Sagres—almost literally at the southwest corner of Europe. It was in this town, in the pre-Columbus and Vasco da Gama 15th century, that navigation pioneer Henry the Navigator is said to have started a school, paving the way for the explorations and imperialist ambitions of the Portuguese diaspora to come. Musically, that diaspora has created, in Brazil, one of the great musical hot spots on the planet, with a formidable link to jazz culture.

Fast forward to early July 2008, and musical explorer Maria João was braving intense wind—the show must go on!—at a captivating late-night show outside the town's ancient ruins. João is a loveable and refreshingly quirky variation on the jazz singer archetype, with Bjork-ian idiosyncrasies and post-Sarah Vaughan phrases, with serpentine Portuguese elements in the mix. 'Round midnight, an especially robust gust of wind (the ghost of Henry the Navigator?) whipped up a friendly frenzy and music paper lost its moorings, to everyone's delight. It was a heady and memorable moment, despite—and because of—the raw elements. It was an only-in-Portugal moment, with California dreaming in the margins.

TO-DOING: Blues—the real thing―stops in Santa Barbara this Saturday, when great blues harp veteran Mark Hummel brings his band, the Blues Survivors, to Warren Hall, courtesy of the Santa Barbara Blues Society … Acoustic guitarist poet-wizard Pierre Bensusan plays SOhO on Tuesday, along with his fan turned colleague, local guitar poet-wizard Pat Milliken.

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