Trumpeter with world of influence hits right local notes

Person of the Week

By Eric Bartels

The Portland Tribune, Jul 21, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Portland trumpeter Farnell Newton has everything he needs – talent, temperament, pedigree – to make it to a larger stage. The only question is the route he’ll take to get there.

He upped his profile this spring with the release of the CD “Sense of Direction” by the Farnell Newton-Marcus Reynolds Quintet, on the local label Diatic. The jazz record, most of it composed by Newton and pianist Reynolds, garnered much acclaim.

But Newton has irons in so many musical fires, there’s no telling where his greatest success will come from. He’s plugged into genres as varied as gospel, klezmer and salsa.

“He’s probably got the widest variety of musical influences and musical awareness of anybody I know,” Reynolds says. “He’s been influenced by a lot of different scenes.”

Apart from his partnership with Reynolds, Newton works with the up-and-coming soul singer Liv Warfield, hip-hop acts like Lightheaded and Lifesavas, and at least three separate Latin music acts.

“In Portland, there’s not like one group that you play with all the time and make a decent living,” he says. “Unless you play with Mel Brown.”

“Portland is a good music scene, but there’s only so many places you can play jazz,” he says.

Newton thinks Warfield, a former track star, may hold out the best chance at wider recognition. “Right now, Liv is the big push,” he says. “Everyone’s trying to get us out there nationally and get us known.”

But Newton isn’t waiting around.

“He’s got a regular job, he’s got a wife, he’s got a couple of kids,” says John Connell Maribona, frontman for the Cuban music ensemble Caña Son. “The guy’s got so much energy.”

Whatever Newton does musically, it tends to make an impression on both audiences and fellow musicians.

“He’s got a really powerful sound,” says pianist Darrell Grant, who teaches music at Portland State University and runs the downtown jazz club LV’s Uptown Jazz Club. “He’s obviously studied, but he’s pretty soulful.”

Reynolds, who met Newton while working at a guitar store in Clackamas, had not seen the trumpeter’s Latin chops until he saw him perform with the band Afincando.

“When I saw him, I was amazed at how much he was nailing all that high-register salsa stuff, because we don’t do any of that,” Reynolds says. “You already have that Afro-Cuban influence with jazz, he’s just really gotten into that. I was really impressed.”

lf people dance, job is done

Newton, 29, is not of Latino extraction and doesn’t speak Spanish. As a child, he grew up listening to Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard, but also absorbed the rhythms of Latin music and culture growing up in Miami.

In playing with the bands Afincando, Caña Son and Melao de Caña, Newton has found the balance between assuming a crucial role and keeping his straight-ahead jazz instincts in check as the traditions of the music dictate.

“I’m the only horn, so I play an important role,” he says. “I can lead in cues or change the direction of a song. I kind of have some power.”

The result is magic. Newton loves the unbridled, dance party enthusiasm of the Latin music shows. “I like it a lot,” he says. “You can go out and let yourself go and have fun. A lot of the stuff we just make up at the gig.”

“If I see some Cubans standing there where they’re not moving when I solo, I feel like I’m not doing my job,” Newton says. “When they start to move, I’ve done my homework.”

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