En Route to the Shakespeare Festival

We're on the first leg of our annual summer Oregon Shakespeare Festival adventure and as in the past, we stopped into Portland for the first night. This evening, we had the pleasure of catching Mel Brown's B3 Organ Group performing (as they do every Thursday evening) at Jimmy Mak's. (that's Mel on drums, above)

"WOW" is a word that came to mind the moment they began to play. Their performance was energetic, playful, relaxed, toe-tapping, tight, powerful, fun, and thoroughly engaging. In the second set, Mel's group was joined impromptu by a couple visiting sax players from NYC - you can catch them in the extra photos at right. The big sound of the Hammond B-3 organ (also in the extra photos) was the driving force behind their amazing sound.