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J O S E P H B L A K E J R .

J O S E P H B L A K E J R .

INTISAR ABIOTO

SE 51st Ave. and Hawthorne Blvd.

With venues closed indefinitely, jazz musician Kerry Politzer has started hosting shows in her driveway.

The best place in Portland to hear local jazz is no longer a wine bar, candlelit club or swanky restaurant. It’s a driveway in Southeast Portland.

Every Friday night near Tabor Bread, you can hear everything from bossa nova, dueling Latin guitars and contemporary jazz emanating from the driveway outside local jazz musician Kerry Politzer’s house.

“Music is something that brings people together,” says Politzer. “We’re so isolated and divided these days. I just want to bring—it sounds maybe hokey or corny—but I want to bring some love into the world.”

KERRY POLITZER (FAR LEFT)

Before COVID -19, Politzer taught in-person music courses at University of Portland and Portland State University and played piano around Portland with her group, Bossa PDX.

“I almost didn’t even realize how important music was to me, even being a musician and a music teacher,” she says. “Not until all of this started.”

So Politzer started hosting and livestreaming weekly jazz performances outside her bungalow home, a series called Driveway Jazz. Local groups and musicians perform in front of a small, socially distanced audience. (Politzer doesn’t post her address online but sometimes gives it out if asked via direct messaging on social media.) The sets are also livestreamed on Driveway Jazz’s Facebook page so anyone can enjoy the grooves and sambas.

Politzer doesn’t have much experience with livestreaming or video production—she streams Driveway Jazz’s shows using just her iPhone. But in the driveway, audiences are more attentive than when she plays in a club. From inside her house, her children watch the “music customers” applaud after every solo.

No one knows for sure when music venues will be safe to open up again. So Politzer plans to keep driveway jazz going for as long as necessary, and she’s considering the prospect of hosting the series next summer as well.

“Hopefully, one day,” she says, “when things get back to normal—if they do—we will have served our purpose by keeping culture alive, keeping the arts alive and helping to keep the jazz community united.” JORDAN MONTERO.

SE Grand Ave. and Ash St.

Photographer Intisar Abioto has added “muralist” to her résumé with a work that pays tribute to Black women and girls.

Now more than ever, care—for one’s self and others—is incredibly important to put into action. It’s particularly important for Black people, and especially Black women. As a photographer, that’s something Intisar Abioto understands deeply.

“I put my art first and I put my community work through art first, but I’m learning and have learned that I need to take better care of myself,” says Abioto. “Not just so that I can be able to do the work but because I’m valuable and important.”

She realizes how valuable and important other Black women and femmes are as well. For years, Abioto has told the stories of Portlanders through her photo blog The Black Portlanders. But during the pandemic and protests, Abioto has created her largest, most public-facing work yet. BabeSis, Aunts Tenn, Ms. W, Miss Choomby…& in Our Company, Abioto’s photo mural located at Grand and Ash in Southeast, depicts Black women standing in their strength. Placed against a black backdrop, the six black-and-white photos are pulled from Abioto’s archives, including a portrait of her younger sisters, local eclectic artist Amenta Abioto, and another of the Lee sisters, Abioto’s aunts who were once dubbed the “most arrested civil rights family” during sit-in protests in Memphis, Tenn.

There’s always been a beautiful brightness to Black beauty, and even though most of society chooses not to see it, Abioto’s mural tries to make sure people don’t forget it

“Right now, we’re thinking about Black lives, but the history of Black women, femmes and girls in this country, how our bodies were used to build this country, while being dispensable, you know that’s a tradition,” Abioto says. “The information we’ve gleaned from being Black girls, from toddlers through being teenagers until now— there’s so much that we see that we’ve had to filter out to maintain ourselves.”

Since the mural was put up with a wallpaperlike material, it won’t last forever. However, Abioto plans to touch it up for as long as she can to make sure the whole point of its presence is really driven home—that Black women and femmes matter and deserve to be seen.

“Tending to Black girls is a gift—you would be so lucky,” she says. “If we’re safe right now, that’s the glory.” CERVANTÉ POPE.

“Tending to Black girls is a gift—you would be so lucky. If we’re safe right now, that’s the glory.” —Intisar Abioto

AT THE DRIVE-IN

Photos by Trevor Gagnier On Instagram: @trevorgagnier

Watching movies under the stars (and inside cars) at Zidell Yards.