Portland Musicians on Keeping Their Creativity Alive When the World Shut Down
BY GRACE MOEN
How Portland Musicians Kept Their Creativity Alive When the World Shut Down
PORTLAND, Ore. -- The live music industry shut down seemingly overnight in mid-March 2020. Tours were canceled, musicians sent home, and creative energy became stifled. In the void, Portland-area musicians found connection with their audiences in new, unexpected places.
Before the pandemic, musicians Edna Vazquez, Jimmie Lee Jr., and Hunter Noack each frequently toured throughout the year locally, nationally, and globally. The abrupt change of pace caused by the shut-down was challenging for many reasons, not least of which was figuring out how to be creatively expressive and purposeful in this new paradigm.
The first pandemic adaptation was to pipe the concert experience into people’s homes, live streaming ad-hoc shows directly to fans via social media. And it did meet a need in the short term, back when the pandemic was expected to last only a few weeks, or a few months at most, but ultimately it lacked the visceral connection for both audiences and artists.
“I need to feel the audience” said Vazquez, guitarist and singer who performs with Pink Martini, of the canceled live concert season.
Photo by Mick Orlosky
Vazquez is not alone. She, along with touring trumpet player Jimmie Lee Jr. - known as JJ Kirkpatrick offstage - and Hunter Noack, a classical pianist of In A Landscape fame, were each thrown off of life’s usual course.
To be a musician during a pandemic is challenging, but to also live in Portland, Oregon during the summer of 2020, when over 100 nights of highly publicized social justice protests were immediately followed by a devastating wildfire season, is a unique type of pressure. As the intersecting crises piled up, so did the feelings of hopelessness.
It “gave me a lot to write,” said Vazquez. “Unbelievably, I’ve been writing more motivating songs with this reality than before.”
It’s not uncommon that fraught circumstances would yield unexpected creative output. Kirkpatrick said that the strife of the world was only compounded by romantic fallout at home.
“That’s where that music and that energy comes from and what makes it special,” he said.
“Now it’s like, I’ve got the blues.”
Photo courtesy of Jimmie Lee Jr.
As the pandemic dragged on, Vazquez, Kirkpatrick, and classical pianist Hunter Noack, each discovered that their artistry could be channeled into a higher purpose. In their own ways, they each found spaces to be of service to their community.
When Oregon caught fire in September and entire towns were leveled to ashes, Noack knew what to do. “It was a different kind of hurt that people felt,” he said. He loaded his 9-foot Steinway onto a flatbed truck bed and headed to Gates, Oregon.
He parked his piano between a church - one of the few structures left standing - and a pop-up meal counter where food was being served to the newly displaced. Noack played during dinner, and then again the next day at each meal, soothing the pain of the town's enormous loss with Chopin, Debussy, and Ravel.
Town residents approached him, sharing intimate stories of how music and nature impacts their lives. It “has meaning for people and that’s the sort of thing that really pushes me along,” said Noack.
Photo by Arthur Hitchcock for IN A LANDSCAPE
For Kirkpatrick, it wasn’t performing, but teaching trumpet online to budding young artists across the country that helped him reconnect to his artistic purpose. “Being a musician and being an educator, man, it doesn’t get any better than that,” he said.
Kirkpatrick’s tour schedule before the shut-down was hectic, rarely spending more than a few days strung together in any single place, which made teaching impossible. But through the pandemic, it’s been his anchor. “Even if it’s a tiny little drop in the bucket to make an impact, this has been extremely rewarding,” he said.
Vazquez used the down time from touring to use her voice and artistry to lift up the stories of other women. She released two new songs - one about Rigoberta Menchu, a human rights activist, and one about Dolores Huerta, a civil rights leader, “queens” she called them.
“Women are not always recognized for the big accomplishments,” Vazquez said. “I think it’s important to bring it out, to bring positive outcomes, for future generations.”
Artists aren’t easily silenced; they are especially vocal within the context of a global health emergency, social injustice, and climate crisis. Vazquez, Kirkpatrick, and Noack are living proof of it.
Today, they are all three back on tour and performing in venues with COVID-safe protocols in place.
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