Writer Aaron Spencer and Willamette Week newspaper have listed me under the Best People heading in their annual Best of Portland issue. wweek/.../article-22832-best-of-portland... BEST TAP-DANCING SAXOPHONIST Inspired by Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Michael Conley dropped out of high school and lived off the grid for 17 years. He hitchhiked around the country, busking on street corners with his saxophone and harmonica. In New Orleans, he picked up tap dancing, and his vaudeville persona Shoehorn (shoehornmusic) was born. He met jazz hoofers like the Nicholas Brothers and Charles “Honi” Coles, who invited him to take his tap-dancing saxophonist act to 30 countries before he settled in Portland in 1993. Shoehorn’s act—catch him at Three Creeks Library later this month or at the Wanderlust Social and the Bite of Oregon next month—is a feat of coordinated multitasking, a musical patting the head and rubbing the tummy. Shoehorn’s tapping technique isn’t formal—you won’t see him doing any Maxie Fords or buffaloes—but he’s devised his own method of toe and heel taps to accent his sax playing. He got the idea while walking and playing the harmonica, punctuating his tunes with his steps and shuffles in the street gravel. He’s even invented a device called the Tappercussion, an electric tap-dancing platform connected to a MIDI controller that flavors his steps with keyboardlike instrumentals. Jazz is a hard sell these days, he admits, but that doesn’t dissuade him. “It’s not so much about being a tap dancing saxophone player,” he says, “as it’s about being yourself.” AARON SPENCER
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 06:55:42 +0000
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