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04/02/2026

Chris Doss: Biamp Portland Jazz Festival honcho looks back at this year's / Coffeeshop Conversations #452

By TOM D'ANTONI //  Straight outta two weeks of the 2026 Portland Jazz festival, Executive Director Chris Doss gives us a look-back and evaluation.

Regular listeners to Coffeeshop Conversations….and I mean over the years…know that one of the things we like to do is bring on some of the folks responsible for some of Oregon’s great music festivals.

For the past few years, a regular visitor to wherever we happen to be recording these has been Chris Doss, the Executive Director of the Biamp Portland Jazz Festival…usually long before the festival has begun.

This time he’s here as the festival is winding up. It ends this weekend and we’re recording on Thursday March 19.

 I wanted to find out how he feels with the finish line in sight, and get some impressions of what he has heard and learned etcetera.

At the controls in his Studio Blue in Northeast Portland is Paul K Ward who seems to be at every keyboard in town these days. Playing music or recording it. I’m at my desk  in Northwest Portland.

With Paul is Chris Doss himself.

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