Archive for the ‘Jazz’ Category

Dec 5, 2012

Take Five From Wine And Imbibe Genius

It’s been called the best five minutes in the history of Jazz. I’d be hard pressed to deny this assessment of “Take Five”, the great composition by Paul Desmond and performance to perfection by Dave Brubeck, who died today at 91 years of age. Many wine lovers will point to a particular wine and insist it was the wine that put them on the road to wine geekdom. For me it was never one wine. But I can say this:…

Oct 1, 2012

The Authentic Rusticity of Wine & Music

About a year ago, in an interview on the occasion of the release of his third recording, Kermit Lynch mused on the way advances in technology have removed the important act of aesthetic decision making from our lives: “I think CDs have killed the art of the album. Not just the artwork. But with an lp you would hear four or five cuts from an artist, then get to decide whether to turn the record over and continue or to…

Sep 3, 2012

Britany, Bird and the Use of Simple Wine

No matter how common, no matter how simple, no matter how ridiculous a wine may be, sometimes that’s what somebody is comfortable with and you are better off just sucking it up, ignoring the good stuff, and just giving them what they want. So I’m sitting in the chair the other day in the process of getting my hair trimmed. My “stylist”, standing over me shears in hand, stops trimming when she here’s Michael Jackson’s “Beat it” blare out through…

Mar 23, 2012

Bringing Focus and Attention to Jazz and Wine

< Branford Marsalis, the great jazz saxophonist and member of the remarkable Marsalis jazz family, is coming to Napa Valley. He along with his longtime pianist partner Joey Calderazzo will play the intimate Napa Valley Opera House on March 29th. Jazz, like wine, remains largely an experience that is most fully appreciated by a relatively small sector of the American population, despite it being an original American art-form. While I wish more Americans would find greater pleasure in appreciating the…

Dec 12, 2011

Charlie Parker and the Notion of Wine as Art

Wine Is not Art. I remain quite interested in the nature of wine and winemaking. Often this fascination of mine finds expression in the consideration of whether wine is art and winemakers artists. I was returned to this theme this weekend while watching the seventh of the ten episodes in Ken Burns' documentary "Jazz", which focuses on the emergence of Be-Bop in the late 1930s and early 1940s. There are a number of ways to define "Art". With the help…