Valentine's Day on the Portland Spirit!

We had a lovely time playing on Friday and Saturday as the lovers cruised the Willamette River onboard The Portland Spirit. Thursday night’s snow melted just in time for us to commute on Friday and downtown was extra festive, as the Winter Light Festival was taking place. It felt great to see downtown bustling with beautiful sights and people.

We’ve played this cruise almost every year since 2014 and Marianna used to work on the boat so it is a very familiar, fun place with some of the same staff there so it always feels like a little reunion.

We played lots of ballads and love songs and had a lot of folks up slow dancing with their sweetheart. On the second night, we even had some professional swing dancers on board who, as it turns out, had seen Mar at a gig with the Cascade Zephyr Swing Band recently. Small world! We also had the marvelous Susannah Mars onboard with her husband and our friend Marilyn, who used to work on Broadway in New York!

Love to you all.

Le Coupe!

On Thursday, we ventured out to the Lair Hill neighborhood to check out Le Coupe, a new champagne bar! We heard about it from the marvelous Shelly Rudolph, who was planning to host a piano bar/singalong that night but unfortunately had to call out sick. The equally marvelous Paul Ward led gracefully from the keyboard and we had a truly magical evening. The place seats about 25 people and is a classy but unpretentious spot with nice marble tables, a lovely selection of bubbly, cocktails, and N/A drinks, and warm, friendly staff (and they put potato chips on your table! Pairs remarkably well with bubbly!). It was full of folks there to listen and to sit in and we met some fabulous singers and a wonderful trumpet player (Derek Becker). Paul called us up to do some tunes (the only time he got a break!) and we played a couple of originals and later did a standard. Cheers!

Donna Jones and Paul Ward 🎶