Every Summer Vancouver’s Wine & Jazz Festival Turns Esther Short Park into a Playground of Sound, Taste, and Soul 

The Vancouver (Washington) Wine & Jazz Festival. Esther Short Park. Grass lawn. Our low-slung, portable concert chairs were of the sort most likely to make knee-replacement surgeons smirk. Still, they provided perfect comfort for imbibing an Overlord Hazy IPA and a Cline Sauvignon Blanc. 

Our fellow concertgoers, many scuffed by time’s hand, wore their patinas with pride. Many a male mane, gray and sparse, was collected into a ponytail (which, obviously, counteracts aging). Many a child would have looked askance at their prolifically tattooed parents (and grandparents) moshing in front of the stage. One fellow, with whom the force was particularly strong, danced nonstop from morning through night. In toto, youth’s bloom may have vanished for many, but its sap was still rising.

Taylor Newville (of Taylor Newville & the Riders) didn’t so much sing the blues as keen them. Her man was doing her wrong with the gal up the street, and it hurt. 

Horns blared. Ben Rice (of Ben Rice & the PDX Hustle), aka the Blues Ninja, overlaid jammy notes from his Fender Telecaster. With a burled voice, he wailed about the one who left him. Could it be that he and Taylor Newville, both wronged, would be right for each other?

Stands of shade trees softened the heat. There were booths selling goods from wineries, breweries, distilleries and cideries, plus food booths and craft booths. We, along with other fans and some musicians, stayed at the warm-hearted, well-spruced Hilton Vancouver Washington across the street, whose restaurant, Grays, serves a bodacious salted caramel skillet cookie with vanilla ice cream, well worth risking your A1C level.

We rarely dine at corporate chain restaurants because their central test-kitchen diktats tend to squelch the genius of on-site chefs. And they usually slow-pitch, which doesn’t excite us nearly as much as a meteoric knuckleball. Still, corporate test kitchens can get it right. WildFin American Grill, down the street from the Hilton, abreast the Columbia River, got it right. Their tomato-burrata salad, anointed by reduced balsamic, transcended the ordinary with a sprinkling of deep-fried quinoa and farro, which brought a beguiling binary crunch. Their broiled miso cod bonneted a terrific risotto based on these two grains, along with shiitake mushrooms.

We enjoyed Andrew Oliver’s erudite commentary on 1920s-30s jazz-blues-swing history as much as his music. The pianist and bandleader of the Bridgetown Sextet, one of their many songs was “Jimmy’s Mean Mama.” It helped confirm the impression that mean mamas (and mean daddies), for all the misery they induce, are a boon to the music biz. Misery, particularly someone else’s, sells.

Old-school protocol requires all jazz and blues musicians and aficionados to wear shades, like the Blues Brothers, particularly in dark places. It was dark when we returned from a languorous break, wearing shades, virtually blind. The Gospel of Matthew (15:14) says, “If a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” Matthew was fly for that’s roughly what happened to us. Being of sound mind and keenly aware of health insurance co-pays, we renounced old school. Perhaps hepcats navigate by echolocation. The demographics had shifted with the hour to a crowd with more tire tread and later bedtimes. Along with everyone else, we grooved to the Rumba Kings — three guitarists, one violinist, a drummer, a conga player and a keyboardist — who wove an intricate sonic brocade. The audience swayed, danced and yipped. A person next to us, in the thrall, spontaneously howled. It was like folks talking in tongues, but in worship of another god.

Is music composed or is it discovered? Could it be that we’re surrounded by an infinitude, maybe even a multiverse, of stirring music just waiting to be plucked from the ether? How many top hit songs dangle inaudibly before us? Will the pain of love ever cease? Attend the Vancouver Wine & Jazz Festival and decide for yourself.