PORT TOWNSEND — Jacqui Naylor, songbird from San Francisco, will appear at the Northwest’s sweet spots: Jazz Alley in Seattle; Jimmy Mak’s in Portland, Ore.; the Cellar Jazz Club in Vancouver, B.C.
And, through a twist of fate, Naylor’s quartet will come this Friday night to the Highway 20 Road House.
Admission to the 7:30 p.m. concert is $12.
“I’ll bring my boots,” Naylor said from her apartment in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.
“I’ve heard they serve breakfast all day, so that is new,” she quipped.
Not that the singer is unfamiliar with the roadhouse at 2152 W. Sims Way.
Naylor has brought her jazz — along with something she calls “acoustic smashing” — to Port Townsend before, as well as to the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts in Port Angeles.
“People there are tremendous, and I’m looking forward to singing for them again,” she said.
That’s also how the song goes when other artists call Mark Cole, presenter of Friday’s concert.
The Upstage, his nightclub/restaurant, was evicted from its downtown space this summer after landlord Dave Peterson found dry rot and other problems with the building.
Since then, Cole has taken his Upstage Presents concerts elsewhere.
He said Tuesday he’s looking at three possible locations for a new live music venue; the Roadhouse is not one of them.
The Upstage was well-known across North America as a good place to play. And Cole gets calls — a lot of them — from performers who want to add Port Townsend to their tour itineraries.
“Sometimes, I have three or four artists who want to come through in one day; they’re all different genres,” he said.
For Friday’s show, local musician Chuck Easton will fill out Naylor’s band, playing bass. The vocalist’s husband, Art Khu, plays piano and guitar, and Josh Jones is on drums.
Together, they do that acoustic smashing thing. This, Naylor explains, has her singing the words and melody of a jazz standard — “Feeling Good,” for example — while her band supplies the groove from a rock, reggae or pop song such as “I Shot the Sheriff.”
“We’re going to have a good time,” Naylor promised.
She estimates her show is equal parts original songs, jazz standards and covers or “smashes.”
She and the band take care to ensure that the latter doesn’t sound “too schtick,” she added.
For “Dead Divas Society,” Naylor’s album released May 21, she pays tribute to departed performers who taught her something about singing: Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Amy Winehouse, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Freddie Mercury, Luther Vandross.
Cole, for his part, emphasizes that the Highway 20 Roadhouse, along with breakfast, lunch, dinner and drinks, has “a good sound system, a good stage . . . and a roll-down door that will be down” to divide the room “in case someone’s playing pool.”
Naylor, meantime, is just delighted to be on tour.
“So close to the release of the new album, there’s still a lot of excitement,” she said. “It’s a fun time for us.”
She added something unusual: a call for requests via www.JacquiNaylor.com.
“You can write me on my website,” Naylor said, “and request something I’ve recorded.
“’Dead Divas Society’ is my ninth album, so there’s a lot to choose from.”
For more information about the Port Townsend performance, phone 360-385-2216.
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
