Name: Biamp Portland Jazz Festival FREE Community Event: Chance Hayden’s Desert Room All Stars
Start: 2025-02-23T18:00:00-08:00
Location: McMenamins Al's Den & Ringlers Annex

$Biamp Portland Jazz Festival FREE Community Event: Chance Hayden\u2019s Desert Room All Stars$

This is a free community event as part of the 2025 Biamp Portland Jazz Festival.
Chance Hayden - guitar
Shelly Rudolph - vocals
Bill Athens - bass
Brent Follis - drums
Always on the move as one of Portland’s most trusted string-slingers, guitarist Chance Hayden has performed avidly since the mid 00s throughout the pacific northwest and beyond as both a bandleader and sideman to diverse acclaimed artists including Jarrod Lawson, Farnell Newton, Darrell Grant, Devin Phillips, Shelly Rudolph, Lloyd Jones, LaRhonda Steele, Mel Brown and many more. Hayden's latest album Baritone Gold spotlights a guitar rarity and a dozen 1960s inspired originals which yield vibrant echoes of surf, soul, blues and classic film scores in an inventive spin of the jazz organ trio. "Several pieces can almost feel like old under-the-radar 45s that somehow were never heard before, but with production that is thoroughly modern and a cooking playfulness that is always timeless" (All About Jazz). His songs have been heard on over 100 jazz radio stations throughout North America and have appeared in major motion pictures and television, including the Sony Pictures #1 box office film The Perfect Guy and BET series Being Mary Jane. While deeply informed through the jazz tradition, Hayden’s guitar stylings are equally steeped with blues, funk and soul: the authentic mixture is a result of a lifetime's listening, learning, teaching, practicing and performing. On each month’s Last Sunday, Hayden presents the Desert Room All Stars at McMenamins Al’s Den, evoking the venue’s storied past in the 50s and 60s as the Desert Room. Formerly a high-class hang for Portland’s underworld where anything desired was obtainable, burlesque and jazz were showcased nightly with a long-term house band led by New Orleans native saxophonist Charlie Gabriel who attracted notable guests such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Sammy Davis Jr. In a similar format, Hayden leads a trio plus various guests performing two sets of mid-century jazz, blues and original works inspired by that period. Though the building has undergone numerous changes through the years, vibes of the Desert Room era remain highly palpable and Hayden will reveal that Al’s Den stands as one of one of the city’s most iconic rooms for jazz.
“A soulful vocalist that prefers not to be contained” (Midwest Records), Shelly Rudolph has long been a favored voice around her hometown of Portland, Oregon and musical travels have taken her to New York, Los Angeles, the West Indies, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and beyond. She has collaborated and recorded with Charlie Hunter, David Darling, Zach Gill (Jack Johnson), David Piltch (kd lang), Ken Stange (Joe Cocker), David K. Mathews (Santana), Tom Lackner (Airto and Flora Purim), Tom Grant and Pink Martini's Phil Baker. These recordings have solidified her standing as a marketable artist for agents and venues, established her as a notable musician among peers and press, and garnered songwriting and recording work nationally and internationally.