Wooden Boat Festival
More than 300 vessels will be on display at the 35th annual Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, Sept. 9-11 at the Point Hudson Marina. One-day tickets are $15, or $10 for seniors and teens. Multiday passes are $30, or $20 for seniors and teens. Download a festival guide and order tickets online at http://woodenboat.org/festival It's 8:30 on a Friday night, and teenage girls wearing short skirts and flip-flops are rocking out to the Rolling Stones in the Undertown, a basement coffeehouse and wine bar likely used a century ago to store ice and coal. Mention Port Townsend, on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, and wooden boats and old houses come to mind. This historic waterfront town boasts plenty of both, reminders of the late 1800s, when wealthy businessmen banked on its future as a major Northwest shipping port. But if you haven't been here for a year or two, get ready for a few surprises. Pack your walking shoes and your dancing shoes. Make it a day trip if you must, but spend the night if you can. Bring an appetite Europe meets the Northwest in Uptown, a residential neighborhood on a bluff overlooking Port Townsend Bay where sea captains and businessmen built elaborate Victorian homes. The mansions are still there. A handful are B&Bs or boutique hotels, including the landmark Ann Starrett Mansion, a stately Victorian built in 1889. But every bit as much of a draw today are Uptown's culinary treasures. Memories of lemon-ricotta pancakes got me out of bed for an early-morning ferry ride from Seattle's waterfront and the one-hour drive to Port Townsend. My first stop was Sweet Laurette's Café and Bistro , 1029 Lawrence St. Maybe it's the creaky wooden floors or the ceramic coffee bowls, but every time I come here, I feel as if I'm in a village in Southern France. Around the corner, bakers at Pane d'Amore , 617 Tyler St., work nights turning out pastries made from pears and blueberries for the Saturday farmers market. Local cheesemongers, cider makers and artists keep a food and music-fueled street party going until early afternoon.
With Centrum, a nonprofit arts group based at nearby Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend attracts a crowd to its annual summer jazz festival. Year-round, resident artists contribute to a lively music and dance scene. • The Undertown.

NEWPORT — The rains came on the last day of the Newport Jazz Festival, and while 5000 people held tickets to the shows at Fort Adams, the actual attendance was clearly quite a bit less. For most of the day, the rain ranged from spitting to serious,
ALAMOSA — An evening of regional music and folk dance entertainment is scheduled for 7:30 pm Thursday, August 4, at the Adams State College Theatre Building, located on Edgemont Blvd. and Main Street in Alamosa. Tickets are $10 per person (limited
When I was pastor at St. Augustine Church in the early 1990s, I was conducting a funeral in a New Orleans funeral home when I noticed how inspiring the musician was as he played and sang. Almost immediately, we got on the same page and the same line as we sang at times singly and at times together as a duet, celebrating in joy and devotion the homegoing of a sibling in the Lord.
After that first meeting, Leon Vaughn and I became fast friends and we were destined to sing together on many occasions to come. Sometimes he came to St. Augustine Church to play at a funeral, and at other times we collaborated to celebrate a funeral or other function elsewhere. For his smile, I dubbed him God’s happy musician.
Most notably, Leon was the main musician there and I sang a bit and spoke at the dazzling 75th wedding anniversary of his dear parents, Percy and Hester Vaughn, Sr. With all ten children in attendance, it was indeed a gala, joyous celebration.
There was another breathtaking celebration in 2004. Under clear skies and the proverbially beautiful weather of October, vocalist/organist Leon Vaughn and others who were doing their numbers on the big stage at the St. Augustine Church Gospelfest in the parking lot, took 40 minutes out at 2 p.m. to repair the Tomb of the Unknown Slave.
Soon, a burgeoning crowd filled Unknown Slave Square, down the sidewalk in front of the tomb, and onto the wide sidewalk adjacent to Governor Nicholls Street. It was a very impressive, devout crowd drawn from every walk of life and hailing from Tremé, the French Quarter and from around New Orleans, together with a goodly sprinkling of visitors from out of town. Since there was no musical instrument handy, Leon Vaughn led the introductory song and the rest of the music, his strong pipes supplying ample foundation to encourage all to sing.
In June 2008, Nicholas Gilliet, the Artistic Director of the JazzAscona New Orleans & Arts festival in Ascona, Switzerland, asked me whether I could find a Gospel musician and two Gospel vocalists to supply the music at the Gospel/Jazz Mass.