THE PUERTO BLUES FESTIVAL

THE PUERTO BLUES FESTIVAL was born in 2001 when Bill Evans, a resident of the Toronto area, who has wintered in Puerto for years, invited Canadian blues king Jack De Keyzer to come down to visit and maybe play a little. "Down in the dirt" was how Jack described that first visit, jamming in the original Split Coconut palapa bar with his compañeros: the rambunctious Sab and harpist David Rotundo.

So began an event that has enlivened the winter Puerto music scene enormously as it developed into a full-fledged music festival with "Puerto Blues 2005", which positively electrified the town.

But the Festival also leaves some good vibes behind, even after the last notes have sounded. In 2006 funds generated by the gigs built a therapy pool for CAM 20, Puerto's school for kids with disabilities. IFOPE, International Friends of P.E. contributed to that effort and this year all profits will go the group's community assistance fund.

The Blues, of course, was born the day the West African shoreline fell from the horizon on the first slave ship to sail to North America. It spent its infancy on the slave plantations and the Jim Crow chain gangs of the Deep South and came of age in the dark heart of America's industrial cities.

The blues became the anthem for a race, an expression of collective victimization, of suffering, injustice, and troubles: troubles of life, troubles in mind. My baby left me and I'm so blue . . .

[enrico crivellaro] The blues, according to musicologists is a melody based an a 12-bar, bent or "blue-note". It was was first popularized in the 1910's by the black composer W.C. Handy. By the twenties, the blues had become a national craze. It strongly influenced the emerging jazz and ragtime music.

Usage of the word blue to denote melancholy can be traced back to the Elizabethan era. But it is the American writer, Washington Irving who is credited with coining the term "the blues" in 1807.

But enough of the academics. In the early '60s, urban blues was discovered by young white musicians and a rock-blues hybrid: rhythm 'n' blues was born. And that's what most attendees come to hear. Get up from your seat and get down, dancing music!

The amazing slide-guitarist Catfish Keith was not a crowd pleaser last year, despite his superb mastery of Delta and Mississippi-style blues. So don't expect too much Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, but some of the regulars, particularly the boy wonder Jimmy Bowskill do slip in some of the authentic, soul-chilling stuff, even if it's just to give us aging hippies a chance to catch our breath.

Jimmy returns this year, now seventeen, with a new diverse 70's flavoured CD; he has matured into one of Canada's top artists.

Also returning is Enrico Crivellaro, a killer guitarist who has shared the stage with the likes of John Lee Hooker, B. B. King and Mose Allison, and the indefatigable Dave Rotundo. Dan Dufour will be on hand to up the ante and raise the bar with his 'lectric guitar!

[bruce katz] The main buzz over Blues Fest 2008 is about the the appearance of Bruce Katz, a jazz and blues pianist and Hammond keyboard wizard, Not a Canadian, Katz lives in Woodstock, N.Y. where he heard about the Blues Fest from a regular Puerto winterer.

Bruce Katz teaches at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston and is currently a regular member of Gregg Allman and Friends, John Hammond Quartet, Alexis P. Suter and continues to tour with his own group, the Bruce Katz Band.

"He can play jazz, blues, Bach, anything. Man, he's a heavy!" says Gregg Allman, while John Hammond is quoted as saying "This man is as good as it gets. One of the greatest keyboard artists I've ever heard." Praise indeed.

So, am I blue? No way: the arrival of "Puerto Blues, 2008" is upon us; Bill Evan's labor of love will treat us to six weeks of blues, r&b, roots music and good ol' down-home rock 'n' roll. Bring it on!

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