Viking 1965

Jazz swung into the limelight at PSC in March. The school's flrst Jazz festival lasted three days and was an artistic and financial success. Ranging in sounds from big band to trio and far-out progressive to Latin Jazz, the series added another leaf to Portland State's musical book. On the first night, the Carl Smith Orchestra played and Jazz vocalist Patti Hart sang. With arrangements by trombonist Quen Anderson and saxist Earle Minor, the band hopped through up-tempo tunes with amaz- ing alacrity and then dropped down the beat with a three-movement tribute to a late Portland bass player, Blues For Bonntc. Latin jazz, the Braztltan "samba nova," was featured during the first half of Thursday's concert. Jim Smith's quintet breathed Latin fire into a form of Tazz rarely heard outside of South America. The multi-horned Gus Mancuso stepped onto the Old Main stage next and offered Jazz on the piano, bass, vibes and baritone horn. His cohorts, Billy Christ, bass, and Sandy Sa- vino, drums, kept up a pace in their share of the festival that was hard to follow. But it was followed the next night at the Public Auditorium by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Paul Desmond, alto sax; Gene Wright, bass, and Joe Morello, drums, aided Brubeck in putting the final touches to PSC's first jazz festival. It won't be the last.