Eric Jensen and Groove Machine are drummin' up the fun

By Elena Boryczka

The Times, Mar 8, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

JONATHAN HOUSE / THE TIMES

Beaverton resident Eric Jensen practices his drumline routine in preparation for the halftime show the Portland Trail Blazer Groove Machine played on March 6. The group has been together since 2004, when Jensen was granted his wish of performing a cadence in honor of one of his high school friends.

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When Eric Jensen was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime, there was no way he was going to pass it up.

Even if it meant agreeing to perform in front of thousands of people without any clear idea of what he would do, the apparel analyst for Nike said it’s not every day a lifelong dream comes true.

Jensen, a 1986 graduate of Beaverton High School, said it had been his dream to touch lives by performing a cadence written by former BHS drummer John Markham, who died in a car accident just a couple years after high school. This beat, titled “Sheer Havoc,” is what Jensen calls “one of the best high school cadences around.”

“I always felt it would be great to perform this cadence and touch the lives of those (Markham) couldn’t with drumming. I always thought, ‘One day — not sure how, though — I will have a drum group and play that cadence,’” he said.

Jensen’s chance to play the cadence finally came in the fall of 2004.

“I was with my friend Marlene Kanehailua, who is on Blazer Dancers,” he said. “And I asked dance coach DeeDee Anderson how one goes about performing at halftime of a Blazer game, as I always wanted to put together a drum group and hadn’t seen one perform at Blazer games. She immediately asked, ‘Can you play for the dancers?’ ‘We could try,’ I said, but thought, ‘How are we going to make that happen?’

“This was July 2004. About two weeks later, DeeDee called me and said my drum group was set to perform at halftime on opening night of the season with the dancers. All I had was an idea, no drums, no drummers. But I told her, ‘All right, sounds good.’”

After contacting a couple of drummer friends and drum instructor Roger Allen, Jensen was able to round up enough people for that first show, which was a wild success.

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