With a 10-day bang-up lineup of 70 acts performing at 35 venues, the Biamp Portland Jazz Festival has been waking up the city. The festival opened Feb. 20 and will wind up March 1.

Alas, bummers happen despite pinpoint planning. Two cancellations — and one especially bigtime postponement, if ticket sales are a measurement – occurred the first week of the festival. Heavily promoted headliner Erykah Badu canceled at the last minute on Feb. 21. She was scheduled to open at the Moda Center’s 7,900-seat “end stage arena configuration,” the largest venue the PDX Jazz Festival has contracted with in its 22-year history. Her show was then rescheduled for March 7 at the Moda.

What turned out to be Badu’s postponement came after drummer/composer Terri Lynn Carrington’s bailout on Feb. 21 (a bad luck day) at the Newmark Theater, and was followed by vocalist Jazzmeia Horn’s 11th-hour cancellation on Feb. 25 at The Old Church. The Carrington and Horn concerts have not been rescheduled.

Now for the good news — and there’s lots of it, including local musicians’ robust participation, shows for just about any jazz taste, and striking musicianship.

Portland musicians

A ton of Portland jazzers performed during the festival’s first week, and others will play at events throughout the festival. Several opened for main acts, including Zyanna Trio for Christian McBride. Drummer Cory Limuaco’s eight-piece “Friends” band, including mega-talented trumpeter Noah Simpson and ever-entertaining pianist Charlie Brown III, opened for Terence Blanchard Feb. 20 at the Newmark. The group played originals other than one Herbie Hancock piece before Blanchard took over the stage with a high-octane quartet.

A number of local musicians played free gigs, including at the Hoxton Hotel, where bold-voiced Arietta Ward, eldest daughter of the late Oregon Music Hall of Famer blues musician Janice Scroggins, sang with bassist Damian Erskine, drummer Tyrone Hendricks and keyboardist Michael Elson. Shirley Nanette sang at the Benson; the Ben Medler/John Moak Quintet was at Burlingame Space. And the list goes on and on.

Jimmie joy

Others, like Jimmie Herrod, the much-loved  Portland crooner, who some claim has the voice of an angel – he did quite well on America’s Got Talent a few years back and sings with Pink Martini – starred in his own sold-out show Feb. 24 at The Old Church, where he sang Stephen Sondheim tunes in two emotion-filled 45-minute sets. If you’re a Sondheim or Broadway musical fan, you know the songs, and Herrod sang them all by heart, rarely stumbling on the wordy, often poignant, sometimes sentimental, lyrics. Among them: “Anyone Can Whistle” (Side by Side); “Beautiful” and “Everybody Loves Louie” (Sunday in the Park with George); “Moments” and “Stay with Me” (Into the Woods); “Losing My Mind’ (Follies);“The Bowler Hat” and “There Is No Other Way” (Pacific Overtures); and “Wait” and “Pretty Women” (Sweeney Todd).

Herrod’s rendition of “I Wish I Could Forget You” from Sondheim’s Passion was unforgettable. Was he wiping away a tear? “Unrequited love is my jam,” he joked. Pianist Chris McCarthy was fluent in Sondheim and fluid in technique, filling in the spaces that Herrod didn’t, while drummer Matt Mayall and bassist Andrew Jones executed restraint necessary to showcase a gifted – but not head-bangingly loud – vocalist like Tacoma-born Herrod. He reminds me a bit of Little Jimmy Smith with his huge range and high notes (Herrod sank little into the baritone range on Feb. 24, except when scatting), but he is an original: that night dressed up in a natty suit, tipping his head to his shoulder, singing his soul out, reaching the audience with his playful sincerity.

Jazz’s funny man Larry Goldings

Speaking of playful, keyboardist and jazz’s funniest man Larry Goldings – who has a hilarious alter ego Hans Groiner, who did not show up at this concert – and hoofer Melinda Sullivan deserved applause and earned smiles for their piano-tap duets Feb. 22 at the 304-seat Winningstad Theater. The theater was not full, but it should have been for this girl-next-door bright-eyed loose-limbed tapper and longtime jazz pianist. They danced and played unpretentiously. Originally collaborating in 2021 during Covid’s worst time, they continued their partnership, thoroughly enjoying one another on stage, and each managing a solo or two without the other.

Grammy-nominated Goldings can play jazz, pop, his own compositions and arrangements, the organ, the accordion, any kind of keyboard. We heard Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” a tribute to Bud Powell called “Bud’s in Bloom,” Beatles tunes, Duke Ellington’s  “Come Sunday,” “Isn’t It a Lovely Day” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz” (with reluctant audience participation). The show served up a delightful eclectic inventive couple of hours, and though the two performers (Sullivan also plays drums and sings a bit) have a 2024 LP on vinyl called Big Foot, they were mercifully soft on the sell.

Blanchard et al

I’m not a lover of electronic jazz, but I am a huge fan of Terence Blanchard, and Blanchard’s Feb. 20 headliner show was all electric. So you go with the flow when the musicians are impressive.

So many reasons exist to love and respect Blanchard. Among them: He is the artistic director of SF Jazz, the West Coast’s preeminent jazz performance hall and institution. He wrote the first Black opera that the Metropolitan Opera has ever staged. Premiering in 2021, Fire Shut Up in My Bones was a critical hit, preceded by his Champion, which debuted in 2013 at the Opera House of St. Louis. Besides being a multi-genre composer and groundbreaker, Blanchard plays a thrilling trumpet, owns seven Grammys, and was an Academy Award nominee for his Spike Lee film scores.

Blanchard said he loves Portland, even the rough-around-the-edges present-day one. He’s played in Portland several times in the recent past, and years ago, after the New Orleans levees broke, when he showcased his beautiful A Requiem for Katrina. He celebrated the piece in January with a 20-year anniversary replay in New Orleans, his hometown.

For this festival, he brought along some E-Collective musicians (not the Turtle Island Quartet) including Julian Pollok, piano phenom and master of a bunch of other weird keyboard instruments and electronic stuff. Add on exuberant drummer Oscar Seaton, bassist David Ginyard and wicked guitarist Charles Altura, whom I’d put up in terms of skill on the same plane as such guitar artists as Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Kevin Eubanks, Julian Lage, Pat Metheny and Jim Hall. Oceans of talented jazz pickers are out there, including Portland’s Dan Balmer.

“Wandering Wonder,” “Benny’s Tune” and the bass-heavy “Prison” were standouts at the concert, where Blanchard starred on his horn, strutting all over the stage in his typical hunched-over style. As good as he is, he let his band star as well. Blanchard has an engaging laid-back stage presence and can crack a sports joke as well as he plays the horn. Well, almost. His 90-minute concert was the quintessential jazz-festival opener.

Up north, the jazz vine let me know that Brazilian sensation Rogé was a giant hit Feb. 25 at a full-house Mississippi Studios. One fan compared him to Jon Batiste, last year’s festival headliner.

There’s a lot more to hear through March 1. So stay tuned.