Albina Music Trust Vinyl, CD & Tape 5 Items

Copy with stuffed / slightly bent corners!

Albina Music Trust has served as a vital resource amplifying Portland’s musical past - most consistently through work with underrepresented soul musicians active in the 1950s-1990s. Another important element of the nonprofit’s work has been strengthening connections between these foundational artists and our current generation of regional musicians, especially those mentored by elders in the Albina musician community.

One such artist is drummer, composer, and educator Domo Branch. At twenty-three years old, Branch has come up through the ranks of the American Music Program - a crucial proving ground for Portland’s jazz musicians that includes Esperanza Spaulding and Charlie Brown III. Founded by Gangsters alum, Thara Memory, Branch received vital instruction through community-centered operations such as AMP and the Mel Brown Jazz Workshop. He now lives in Manhattan and performs with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra under the direction of Wynton Marsalis. He has since formed a bi-coastal group, Branchin’ Out.

The Melodies of a Branch is a solo drum recording made in Riga, Latvia. This rare session followed Branch’s 2022 performance at the city’s annual jazz festival. Performing in an intimate setting at Latvian Radio Recording Studios, Branch’s range of motion is now on full display in this exploration of the many nuances of a drum set.

The record also keys into the emotional value of the Black experience through music. Whether it be the evolution of drumming ranging from tribal to contemporary forms or the sheer capacity of melodic phrasing on the drums, the album is expressive, free, and spiritually sound. Through its spare, minimalist genesis into the polyrhythmic power and beauty of its conclusion, the work evidenced here is consistent with the many iterations of Branch’s work with other ensembles. Except now we get him to ourselves.

In the summer of 1979, a Chicago DJ started a riot that killed disco overnight. Inciting fans to blow up disco records during a nationally televised major league baseball game, the cultural impact of Disco Demolition Night was felt globally. It even made waves in Portland, Oregon.

In the months to follow, clubs in the City of Roses were out to hire anything but disco. For Transport, hot nights as a stage-ready show band would fade to memory. First went the horns, then the vocalists, until all that remained was the rhythm section. The band's days were numbered or so it seemed.

But keyboardists Jimmy and Johnny Sanders were fiercely experimental. Freed from the disco formula, the brothers' exchange over synthesizers and other keyed instruments was electric. With drummer Towner Galaher, the group bore songs in homage to the fusion music ever present in Portland. Inspired by the national success of local groups like the Jeff Lorber Fusion, Tom Grant, and Dan Siegel, the band was reborn.

Months before signing a multi record deal with Geffen, Quarterflash's Marv and Rindy Ross offered Transport a shot at recording in their home studio. The group recorded over two sessions and soon shelved the tapes. Band members were summarily recruited by other acts shortly thereafter. The tapes have continued to sit.

Now over four decades later we hear this music. With tape restoration and mastering by Gus Elg, a calculated spitshine envelops the recording and positions listeners in the shag carpet-lined haze of a 1970s fusion session. With design by Eric W Mast, viewers can check out the aforementioned period upholstery through archival photography in the album's insert, depicting wall-to-wall shag gracing the booths at Mel Brown's Drum Shop.

Out of the gate, "Latin Summer" burns through with an urgency akin to The Gangsters - an album recorded by members of this band a decade prior. On the Funkadelic-fused "Chrome Dome," Jimmy Sanders continues to make use of the synthesizer, through squiggling tones and fried bursts, as well as on “Gospel Bridge,” a track that evokes Heavy Weather in its Pollock-like splashes of melody. Jeff Bruce's fretless bass brings a psych-propelled elasticity to the groove, adding a sinful undercurrent to “Time of My Life” - a languorous tune that could be a Head Hunters outtake - while giving “Song For Valerie” a playful Peaches & Herb-like wiggle.

Transport's output is staggering for a group entirely unreleased and but a drop in the bucket for Portland's cottage industry recording business of yesteryear. This installment in the group's catalog probes a layer deeper.

n 1969, a transformation in Albina was underway. Displaced by the Vanport flood two decades prior, an influx of Black residents had settled in the area after redlining practices among the city’s realty boards provided few other options. A local economy among Albina’s Black residents had flourished for a time, but soon declined due to chronic disinvestment by the city’s elites. As with many urban centers in America, the impending ghetto-ization of the neighborhood developed as the civil rights movement was in full swing. And the citizens of Albina had something to say about it.

During this time, Shades Of Brown came together at the Albina Arts Center - a community hub for practicing artists of all stripes. A product of the Model Cities initiative, the center was established to develop the cultural and intellectual resources in the neighborhood amid the protests and civil unrest of the times. Paul Knauls’ Cotton Club had shuddered its doors in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Albina’s Black residents had been forcibly displaced from their homes to make way for urban renewal projects conceived by the Portland Development Commission. And Williams Avenue, the once-vibrant hub for Oregon’s jazz music with myriad Black-owned businesses lining the streets, was at risk of becoming a blighted shell of itself. Left to their own devices, Black artists were organizing to convey truth through their work and the Albina Arts Center was ground zero.

Rehearsing at the Albina Arts Center, members of the Shades Of Brown found one other as a variety of Albina’s musical acts were shifting, separating, reconstituting, and forming anew. The group would feature members of the Cavaliers Unlimited, Little Nolan & The Antoine Brothers, Youthsound, Upepo, and the Norman Sylvester Band. And as luck would have it, Free Meal Ticket - renowned soul singer Wilson Pickett’s group - would disband while on tour in Portland. This left director, composer, and future Grammy recipient Thara Memory en route to the Albina Arts Center. He was quickly recruited to become the bandleader for Shades Of Brown.

Equipped with the ephemeral resources flowing from the Model Cities initiative, Memory organized youth and adults into a variety of ensembles, and with a penchant for results-driven rigor he would furnish his pedagogy via musical boot camp with the Shades Of Brown. The band was required to read and write their music. Before a note was to be played, members were summoned to the blackboard to chalk out their parts on a musical staff. And it was not uncommon that rehearsals consisted of the band being drilled with marching routines, as was common in the tradition of Memory’s southern upbringing. This went on for months. When the results were in, Memory gave the green light for the band to perform. And the Shades Of Brown would have something to say about it.

Celebrating Albina Music Trust’s tenth vinyl release, the story of Shades Of Brown circles back to the label’s first outing, The Gangsters. Both records spotlight the impact of Thara Memory’s tutelage while highlighting the legacy of community-powered arts education in Albina. Even the label’s logo mark is an inspired interpretation of the Albina Arts Center’s motif.

Being the sole recorded output of Shades Of Brown, the album reflects the group’s sense of fellowship as well as the sentiments of its contemporaries in Albina - makers, dreamers, activists, and youth - under-resourced and confounded by the City Of Portland’s blatant disregard. As vocalist Gregg A. Smith lays bare on “Searchin’ For Love”, one can’t help but hold the image of this community and its cry for decency in light of limited services and harm. Over half a century later, we now have this document to ponder. What are we doing to prevent this from happening again?

On May 2, 1982 the Youthsound Choir and Stage Band performed at Portland’s Jefferson High School. With youth ranging from elementary through high school, this 100-voice mass choir under the direction of Ken Berry was poised to sing an array of uptempo spirituals. Their backing big band contained a who’s who of Albina’s adult musicians interspersed with youth. The feeling in the air was electric. An audience of 1,500 had awaited this moment - along with the city’s fire marshall, insisting that maximum capacity had been reached. The story of Youthsound is the story of resilience, mentorship, and mutual aid. With an approaching local bond measure that would increase Portland Public Schools’ investment in the arts, the Youthsound concert was made possible through efforts of recruitment, rehearsal, fundraising, and lobbying to demonstrate what this community was capable of with increased resources. According to band mentor Ronnye Harrison, “We didn’t wait around for the city or anyone else because we knew no one was coming. We just needed a place to rehearse that was safe for the kids and where their families felt safe.” This is also the story of The World Arts Foundation. Youthsound is one of many programs that comprise WAF’s legacy. Later evolving into the Cultural Recreation Band and then the American Music Program, Youthsound marks the beginning of a legacy that has produced musicians such as Esperanza Spaulding, Charlie Brown III, and Domo Branch. True to AMT’s release format, this vinyl package contains a 12-page booklet featuring archival photography and a detailed oral history of the group - executive produced by Ken Berry, and with design and art direction by Brian Mumford and Bobby Smith respectively. Originally broadcast on community radio and cable access, the recording by Thomas Robinson and Evan Shales (The Wipers, The Rats) has been masterfully preserved by Gus Elg from a variety of source tapes. The backing band here is heavy, featuring members of nearly every band released in AMT’s catalog - not to mention members of Pleasure, the pianist Janice Scroggins, and the Ghanaian master drummer Obo Addy. In the words of World Arts Foundation’s co-founder Michael ‘Chappie’ Grice, “We’re here to speak to you in a language that is universally understood throughout the world. It is called… music.”