About the ARTISTS SERIES

"This is what happens when Good Musicians get together to play Good Music."

The ARTISTS SERIES is a new monthly series featuring top vocal talent in front of a powerhouse "little Big Band" organized and arranged by Pete Petersen. This series will feature a different vocalist each month and is intended to present already-established vocal artists from various genres, performing in a Big Band setting. Artists will perform a mixture of their own "signature" material with the band as well as new renditions of jazz standards arranged specifically for each artist, performed at a very high level of musicianship by this band of some of the top players in the area.

While the Septet's roots are steeped firmly in the jazz idiom, one purpose of this series is to deliberately shatter the boundaries between jazz, blues, and other styles. Rather than promote this series using genre-specific labels like "jazz", "blues", "R&B", etc, the concept of this series can be summed up in one simple sentence: This is what happens when good musicians get together to play good music. Prominent established Pacific Northwest vocalists who regularly perform at the highest level of musicianship with their own band(s) will be featured in front of an all-star ensemble of top-level professional musicians from the Portland area. Guest Artist performances will feature their own signature songs as well as new material written specifically for each performance, and fresh treatments of jazz and pop standards, all backed by a powerhouse "Little Big Band" consisting of some of the area's finest players. Many of the band's regular members are also bandleaders in their own right, and all of them are veterans of national or international touring acts. This truly is, at its core, good music performed by good musicians.

A secondary purpose of this series is to expose younger audiences to live music. Every current generation of musicians and performers owes their knowledge and skill to the fact that they were able to see and hear live performances during their formative younger years. The tradition of performing live music in front of audiences has been passed down from each generation to the next since the first caveman banged out the first rhythm on the first rock. However, since many of these performances nowadays take place in bars and nightclubs, that passing down of tradition almost didn't happen for this current generation of young music students due to the increasingly strict laws surrounding minors and alcohol. But now, thanks to a hard-fought political battle by local area musicians and venues (which was spearheaded in large part by the Musicians' Union local 99), the OLCC is now allowing minors to attend live music performances at certain venues during certain hours on certain nights. As a result of this change, we are pleased to be able to announce that the entire first set of this performance from 7:30pm to 9:00pm is open to All Ages! The primary reason this series is taking place on Thursdays instead of weekend nights is because Thursdays are one of the nights during the week when this venue is open to minors. Please go to http://www.tonystarlight.com/minors.shtml for information about their minors policy.

Past guest artists have included:

Amy Weber
Karla Harris
Tahoe Jackson
Alyssa Schwary
Marilyn Keller
KimMassie

Stay tuned for future guest artists including:

Ellen Whyte - May 26, 2011
Halie Loren - June 30, 2011
Lauren Kinhan
Johnny Martin
Carri Bella

and more...

We hope you enjoy listening to these unique performances as much as we enjoy putting them on!