The Saturday evening (7:30pm), Jazz Port Townsend show at McCurdy Pavilion is the final mainstage performance at the Festival. The July 28, 2012 show will feature vocalist Mary Stallings with the Eric Reed Trio, as well as the Graham Dechter Quartet with Artistic Director John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, and Tamir Hendelman, with special guests Jeff Clayton, Walter Smith III, Gary Smulyan, Terell Stafford, and Jiggs Whigham.
The concluding pavilion performance of Jazz Port Townsend opens with the Festival debut of vocalist Mary Stallings, whose career in the early sixties included performances with Cal Tjader and Dizzy Gillespie.
She was the featured vocalist with the Count Basie Band from 1969 to 1972. Taking time off to raise a family, she returned to performing in the late 1980s.
She will be joined by The Eric Reed Trio who accompanied Stallings on her latest, critically acclaimed recording Don’t Look Back.
The final set features the Graham Dechter Quartet which spotlights the guitarist, now in his mid-twenties, with his colleagues and mentors from the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra who appeared on his first album Right on Time – pianist Tamir Hendelman, bassist John Clayton, and drummer Jeff Hamilton.
The Quartet will be joined by festival guests including alto saxophonist Jeff Clayton, tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III, baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan, trumpeter Terell Stafford, and trombonist Jiggs Whigham.