‘Free For All’ concert in Woodstock: Latin for a change

Published 12:00 am Sunday, September 29, 2024

Each summer Portland Parks & Recreation puts together a selection of “Free For All” events throughout the city, partnering with community groups, artists, nonprofits, and culturally-specific groups – to produce concerts, movies, and cultural events that are free to the public.

This year, at the last minute, PP&R notified the Woodstock Neighborhood Association (WNA) that its band for the “Free For All” summer concert in Woodstock Park had been changed.

Thus, on the very warm Thursday evening of August 8th, some may have come to the park still thinking the band would be Beat Frequency, as originally scheduled, but they quickly got into the beat of the Latin music from Conjunto Alegré (“Happy Band”).

Children and a few adults danced joyfully on the grass in front of the 12-piece band, which offered what has been called “a hot mix of tropical music from all over the Caribbean” – specifically, from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama.

The Portland-based band’s director, composer, musician and marketer, Aquiles Montas, was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to Portland in 1970. He studied business administration at Portland State University, and has worked at Metropolitan Family Services, and for Multnomah County. In 1987 he started Conjunto Alegré as a way to educate people in the Pacific Northwest about Caribbean culture.

At the concert, the east side of the park offered information tables focused on the Woodstock Farmers Market, the Woodstock Food Pantry, the Woodstock Neighborhood Association, and Portland Parks & Recreation.

Peggy McCafferty, a volunteer Board member at the Woodstock Farmers Market table was there to let people know that the market offers a $20 SNAP match every week. She also was passing out an information sheet on Douglas Firs which challenged people to count the number of Douglas Fir trees in Woodstock Park. (To see a map identifying all of the trees in the park go online – http://www.portland.gov/trees/get-involved/treeinventory).

t every summer the WNA sponsors a “Free For All” event in the park – usually a movie or concert. These are offered no cost to the public, because the WNA puts forth $1,000 to Portland Parks & Recreation for related expenses. To be notified of future summer “Free For All” events in the park, go online – http://www.woodstockpdx.org – and then click to receive the monthly online WNA newsletter.

As a side note, the single “Free For All” concert this year scheduled for Sellwood Park in the Sellwood-Westmoreland neighborhood was called off at the last minute by a decision by PP&R to cancel every outdoor event it had scheduled on Saturday night, August 17, around 5 p.m. due to the thunderstorm then in progress. It resulted in .17 inch of rain in Sellwood, which was more than any monthly August rainfall total anyone there can remember. The airport got .30 that night. However, that concert was made up later — as you’ll read in this issue of THE BEE.