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