The NW Women In Rhythm & Blues 11th Annual Christmas Concert '09

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    Now here’s a great tradition that just keeps getting better every year. Over the past ten years, Sonny Hess and the NW Women in Rhythm & Blues have been delivering outstanding holiday shows featuring many of the most amazing female blues musicians the Northwest has to offer. For the 11th year, however, the event is stepping up and beyond previous years by extending to two nights. And if the people involved were not enough, consider the well-deserving beneficiary from these concerts, Candlelighters For Children With Cancer.
   Did you know that for every school day there are 46 children diagnosed with cancer? One in 330 children will develop cancer by the age of 20 and one quarter of those will die within five years of being diagnosed. Cancer remains the number one disease killer of America’s children today, more than Cystic Fibrosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Asthma and AIDS combined. There are currently more than 270,000 childhood cancer survivors in the United States today and with the efforts of groups like the Candlighters we hope to see those surviving numbers climb.
   So to offer a little help yourself this holiday season, plan on attending one or maybe both nights of the NW Women In Rhythm & Blues Christmas Concerts. They will be held at The Chelsea Ballroom (1510 SE Hawthorne) on Wednesday, December 16th and Thursday, December 17th. There will be dinners available and a silent auction will also occur. Doors open at 6:00 pm, dinner at 6:30 pm. Tickets are available through www.ticketsoregon.com. For more information, call 503-319-1333. For further information about the Candlelighters, check out their website at www.candlelighters.org.
   Both nights will feature a core band with Sonny Hess on guitar, Lisa Mann on bass and Kelly Pierce on drums. Here are the guest performers who you will see if you attend:
   Wednesday night: LaRhonda Steele, Janice Scroggins, Megan James, Nayibe Rojas, Claudia Knauer and Kimberly Hall.
   Thursday night: Lady Kat, Rae Gordon, Ellen Whyte, Leah Hinchcliff, Mary Sue Tobin and Bonnie Lee Bluestone.

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CD Reviews

"All Jams On Deck - DVD"

Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise LLC / Mug Shot Productions

All Jams On Deck is labeled as a limited edition cruiser collectable, but it is far more than just a souvenir DVD that offers some terrific highlights from the after-hours jams that take place on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruises. It is actually also a nice primer for performers to learn from the professionals on how to run jams. Filmed on the October 2010 West Coast cruise by music documentarian Robert Mugge, who was responsible for such works as Deep Blues, Gospel According To Al Green, Hellhounds On My Trail and the previous cruise film Deep Sea Blues, he again captures the essence and fun of these late hour jams.

Sure, there are great selections of the actual jams taking place on-board, with artists like Tommy Castro, Johnny Winter, Coco Montoya, Marcia Ball, John Nemeth, Elvin Bishop, The Lowrider Band, Randy Oxford, Commander Cody, Jimmy Thackery and many others. But it is the sit-down interviews of the musicians giving tips for proper jam etiquette and leading that make this film even more appealing for musicians who want to learn. Tips are given by top artists like Kim Wilson, Lee Oskar, Marcia Ball, Elvin Bishop, Vasti Jackson and Tommy Castro, and they all make sense whether you’ve performed or watched a jam. It’s part telepathy between the artists and part rolling with the flow. And if you’re not sure what to do, follow Elvin Bishop’s Three Commandments for Jamming: “C Sharp, B Natural . . . And when in doubt, lay out!” If you’re not a player, though, and not interested in the workings of a jam, just fast forward to the live performances, because they’re quite a lot of fun on their own.

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