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Tag: Chris Cortez

  • Remembering Orlando musician, Blue Bamboo founder and scene mover Chris Cortez

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    Chris Cortez Credit: Jim Leatherman

    When I led my year-end Undie Awards column with a salute to Chris Cortez, it wasn’t intended to be in memoriam. The version I turned in to my editor was very much in the present tense with well wishes to the local scene mover for his cancer recovery. Between deadline and press time, however, news broke of his passing, so the version that ran turned out to be a parting tribute. But that one blurb, however superlative, doesn’t suffice to mark Cortez’s impact on local music. 

    The Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts is a jazz cornerstone in the Central Florida music scene, and it’s through the vision, will and leadership of Chris Cortez. It began as a scrappy venture whose ascendance was a dark-horse run. Before its current prime situation in the cultural heart of Winter Park, the Boo was on the unglamorous off-Fairbanks fringe near I-4. Chris and wife Melody made the place nice and professional, but the Boo was born in a warehouse. 

    There, the venue wove itself into our city’s fabric as an independent, artist-run performance space that fed the musical needs of the community while keeping steadfast to its commitment to the musician community, honoring both with equal dedication. In real life, the good guys don’t always prevail. But somehow, the Boo did it on those righteous ethics. Now, a decade later, it’s a pillar of the area’s music scene, so championed by both the public and the establishment that it beat out other contenders to take over the former Winter Park Library space.

    I started covering the Blue Bamboo shortly after its 2016 opening. Early on, Chris shared with me his ideas and hopes for it. He took me behind the curtain to see the inner workings of the dream. 

    I was even there the day the music died due to the pandemic. It was March 2020, and a joint performance by Beth McKee and Terri Binion was planned to be public as usual until things got biblically unusual, and COVID shut down the world. Chris quickly pivoted to make the show a virtual broadcast. It was one of the very first of its kind here, making the Blue Bamboo local pioneers of quarantine concerts.

    The show went on. OW photographer Jen Cray and I were the only non-staffers allowed to attend. Against towering odds, Chris and crew made magic happen and kept the flame of music alight. It was one of the most historic days I’ve ever lived through and an event forever etched in my soul. That last sentiment is now something our music community shares about Chris Cortez. 

    Chris Cortez Credit: Jim Leatherman

    But instead of simply reflecting on his memory, go bask in his spirit this week at the new year’s first Thursday Night Hang on Jan. 8 (8 p.m. Thursday, free), the regular concert and jam session evening that Chris himself used to anchor. Of all the events at the Boo, none are more quintessentially Chris Cortez than these. 

    Thanks, Chris. You did it. And we’re all the better for it.

    Orlando’s daily dose of what matters. Subscribe to The Daily Weekly.

    This article appears in Jan. 7-13, 2026.



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    Bao Le-Huu
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  • It’s time for This Little Underground’s Undie Awards, honoring standouts in Orlando music

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    Credit: Jim Leatherman

    OK, adorable miscreants. It’s my closing column of the year, so that of course means that it’s TLU’s annual, unbelievably exciting and inarguably definitive Undie Awards honoring 2025’s standouts in local music. And this year, the flowers go to …

    THE 2025 UNDIES

    Best scene service: Chris Cortez

    He spearheaded independent jazz venue Blue Bamboo first into prominence and then into a new, high-profile location this summer against steep odds. Then in October, the longtime Boo icon shocked when he stepped away to battle brain cancer. Thank you for everything you did, Chris. You will be missed.

    Most hyperlocal release: 407 F.R.

    Homegrown EDM artists Arina Krondeva and Propah Ganda handily win this one with an excellent EP that 1) is built on field recordings of downtown, 2) features a song named after famous Lake Eola goose Lucy and 3) proudly picks up the mantle of Orlando breaks. It doesn’t get any more Orlando than this.

    Best music campaign: Swamp Xistas

    Practically no local music groups are more dedicated to community service than Beth McKee’s Swamp Sistas. But this year, they outdid even themselves with Power Lines. As Swamp Xistas, this even more expanded corps of benevolence launched the yearlong singles release series to raise funds for Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. Their second single, “One Step Closer,” just dropped last Friday.

    Best musical monument: Posthumous Richard Sherfey album 

    Former longtime Orlando musician CJ Mask proved himself both a devoted friend and an inspired music director when he took on the herculean task of turning demo fragments from dearly departed local Americana figure Richard Sherfey into a finished and deluxe album. Rendered with a gusto that matches Sherfey’s soulful croon and printed as a gatefold vinyl album, the recently released No Distance is both labor of love and extraordinary feat. CJ Mask made it happen.

    Best scene gateway: OGRC’s Youth to the Front concerts

    This year, the increasingly seminal Orlando Girls Rock Camp have upped their game with their Youth to the Front shows. As a matinee concert series open to all ages, these nurturing events are safe spaces that give Orlando’s youth early, almost unprecedented access to the real local music scene. No Kidz Bop shit here.

    Best at-long-last debut: Chris LeBrane’s Campaign

    Inauguration, the debut album by scene veteran Chris LeBrane, is remarkable both for its nearly decade-long gestation and its nostalgic perfection. Of all the throwbacks happening right now, nobody here is working the 1980s niche where R&B and new wave converge like LeBrane. Inauguration is a luscious synth-funk clinic that’s pure neon fantasy. Forget vaporwave, this is 1980s redux done in living, vivid color. I shook more ass to this than any other local release this year.

    Best cover: The Ludes & Skinny McGee

    There are cover versions and then there are reinventions. When The Ludes and Skinny McGee released their spaghetti Western take on Kraftwerk’s “The Model” this year, it was a revelation. Their reimagining of the song is so inspired that they’re owed some authorship daps just for the idea and execution alone.

    Best cover act: New Eagles

    Man, fuck “Free Bird.” Comprised of decorated veterans in the city’s indie-rock scene, this all-star group kicks out jams by bands like Guided by Voices, The Thermals, Archers of Loaf, Jawbreaker and The Replacements. It’s guilty pleasure done with connoisseur taste.

    Best creative blitz: Cloud Crew’s WAM series 

    Since its spring launch, this international music charrette spearheaded by Orlando’s Paper Aviator has yielded four remarkable albums, each created in the breathless span of a weekend by a global rainbow collective of digital fusion artists. The whirlwind collaboration exercise is a wonder of hive creativity. What’s more, all proceeds come home to benefit crucial LGBTQ+ service organization Zebra Youth.

    Best confluence: The San Francisco Renaissance & Alien Witch

    These two notable young bands got so in sync during the making of their self-titled split album that they sound like a single psych-rock powerhouse delivering a magnum opus. The album isn’t just a high-water mark for both bands, it’s a new Orlando touchstone of psychedelia. 

    Orlando’s daily dose of what matters. Subscribe to The Daily Weekly.

    Proof positive of a band that cares more about songs than stripes

    Free entry with a donation of food

    Thunderchief and Dark Arctic open

    This article appears in Dec. 24-30, 2025.



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    Bao Le-Huu
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  • Musician and Blue Bamboo Center founder Chris Cortez has passed away

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    Credit: Jim Leatherman

    Chris Cortez — musician, founder of the nonprofit performing arts haven Blue Bamboo Center, and the man who guided the venue to its expansive new home at the old Winter Park Library building on New England Avenue with wife, Melody — has passed away.

    Cortez was diagnosed with brain cancer in October. He decided to step away from his day-to-day duties at the venue and headed west with Melody to California to be near family. He played his last show on the Blue Bamboo stage in front of a packed house on Oct. 30.

    Cortez passed away on Sunday, Dec. 21, according to a post shared on the Blue Bamboo’s Facebook on Tuesday.

    “Chris Cortez, founder and visionary of the Blue Bamboo Center For The Arts, may you rest in peace, knowing that your vision and your dreams are part of your legacy,” read the post — very fittingly. The expanded Blue Bamboo 2.0 facility in the old Winter Park Library is a testament to his tireless work on behalf of Orlando arts and music.

    “I hold deep gratitude for Chris’ talent, his generosity, his belief in artists and the home he made for so many of us,” wrote Orlando musician and community-builder Beth McKee on social media.

    Orlando’s daily dose of what matters. Subscribe to The Daily Weekly.



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    Matthew Moyer
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