Blue Note recording artist Dianne Reeves, recognized as the pre-eminent singer of jazz, will perform with the Oregon Symphony at the Portland Jazz Festival on Valentine's Day 2009. The festival will be celebrating the 70th anniversary for the legendary Blue Note recording label.

Reeves never fails to awe worldwide audiences with her unique jazz stylings. She has gained an ever-growing fan base as well much critical claim. In 2006, she received a record breaking fourth consecutive Best Jazz Vocal Grammy. Reeves was the first Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic as well as the first singer to ever perform at the famous Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Reeves has recorded and performed extensively with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, as well as with Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim. She also worked with the legendary producer Arif Mardin on the collection A Little Moonlight, which features her trio.  Read more »

Portland Jazz Festival will top off its celebration of Blue Note Records with a finale performance by former Blue Note artist and Portland native Kurt Elling performing his tribute to the 1963 collaboration between saxophone great John Coltrane and baritone Johnny Hartman. A similar performance by Elling was one of the highlights of last year's Monterey Jazz Festival.

The concert recreates many of the ballads on the 1963 recording, Dedicated to You, which was recorded just over a year before Coltrane produced his seminal recording A Love Supreme. Unlike that transcendent effort, the Hartman collaboration was a more intimate and accessible album, a mood captured by Elling and his instrumental partner Ernie Watts.

Elling is widely regarded as one of the top jazz vocalists today, having won multiple Downbeat critic's polls and Jazz Times reader polls as well as seven Grammy nominations. He has performed twice before at the Portland Jazz Festival. For more information.  Read more »