Abbey Lincoln

-
0

The world according to jazz diva Abbey Lincoln

By Greg Cahill

Abbey Lincoln doesn’t like small talk. Sometimes ornery, often wistful, the 74-year-old jazz singer shoots strait from the hip during a phone interview from her Manhattan apartment. “I never thought I’d see these days, but I don’t imagine anybody else did either,” says Lincoln, commenting on what she sees as rampant commercialization and the lack of moral values in the music industry. “Too many performers today work for the industry and not for the people or for their own spirit. And that’s too bad.”

Nobody has ever accused Lincoln, the last of the great jazz divas, of lacking spirit. For four decades, her interpretive and compositional skills have colored twilight meditations on life and love, often tinged with a bittersweet sadness. “Yes, and I’m thankful for it,” she says of her highly personal songwriting style. “Thelonious Monk told me I was a composer; I didn’t know that until he told me.

“But I have a lot to say,” she adds, “and I don’t like the world that I found myself in, that I was created to be in. I was brought here, but I don’t like this ‘here.’ It’s the pits! If I wasn’t able to access myself through the work, I would have dropped dead a long time ago. I couldn’t have stood it here.”

Make no mistake, Lincoln, who headlines the fifth annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival on June 8, has proved an uncompromising artist, one who has fashioned the world–

“–according to Abbey!” she says with a laugh. “Yeah.”

A lot has gone into shaping this renaissance artist, an accomplished composer, actress, poet, and playwright whom Bob Russell, the lyricist who managed Lincoln’s early career, described as “Chicago-born, Kalamazoo-bred, jazz-band-trained, and honky-tonk educated.”

Born Anna Marie Wooldridge, Lincoln grew up on a Michigan farm as one of 12 children, yet she was a lonely child who found solace picking out melodies on the family’s piano. At 19 she won a talent contest and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a club singer. By 1952 she had moved to Honolulu to perform under the stage name Anna Marie. “I sang songs I heard Rosemary Clooney sing, songs that were popular on the radio,” Lincoln once told Lisa Jones of the New York Times.

But it was Billie Holiday who proved most influential. “I heard her on the Victrola for the first time when I was 14 years old and living in Michigan,” Lincoln recalls. “Her singing went right into my heart. She didn’t try for musical tricks; she would just tell you a story.”

In Honolulu the then-fledgling nightclub singer Lincoln had the opportunity to meet Holiday. “She was working at a club there, the Brown Derby, and I was working at another nightclub, the Trade Winds. It was the first time I’d had a chance to see her,” Lincoln says. “I would do my show and then I’d run over to see her. One night she came to the club where I worked–I figured she was just trying to get away from all the confusion that surrounded her at the club where she worked. She was a great queen and a great artist.”

What did these two jazz singers discuss?

“I don’t remember,” Lincoln insists, adding with a sly laugh, “That was like 90 years ago! But I did not take her as a peer, and I did not run up and get in her face. I was very respectful, as I knew I should be. She was always very sweet to me.”

In 1954 Lincoln returned to Hollywood to perform at the Moulin Rouge, a popular nightclub that featured a French-style revue replete with elephants and pink-dyed poodles. Singing under the stage name Gaby Lee, she wore feathered hats and dresses with revealing slits. In 1956, under Russell’s advice, she changed her name to Abbey Lincoln–a combination of Westminster Abbey and Abraham Lincoln.

That same year, Lincoln recorded her debut album, Abbey Lincoln’s Affair . . . a Story of a Girl in Love, appearing on the cover in provocative pose that furthered her reputation as a sex symbol. That status led to a bit part in the 1956 musical comedy The Girl Can’t Help It, starring Jayne Mansfield. In the film, Lincoln wore a dress that Marilyn Monroe had worn in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

But in the 1960s, Lincoln underwent a personal and professional transformation from svelte supper-club chanteuse to outspoken and politically aware jazz singer and social activist. She married legendary jazz drummer Max Roach, starting a 10-year relationship that many credit with helping to reshape Lincoln. “He was my companion, and we worked together and exchanged ideas. A lot of folks like to think that he ‘created’ me, but he didn’t,” a defiant Lincoln says.

However, Roach did introduce Lincoln to such jazz greats as Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk. She soon began composing her own music and penned lyrics to Monk’s “Blue Monk” and Coltrane’s “Africa,” among other songs.

In 1960 Lincoln contributed screams and shouts to Roach’s landmark recording We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, which became the jazz anthem of the Civil Rights movement. As a result, Lincoln was branded a radical. Unwilling to stop speaking out on civil rights, she stopped recording altogether in the mid-’60s to focus on an acting career. In 1964, she starred in the film Nothing But a Man and in 1968 played the title role opposite Sidney Poitier in the romantic comedy For Love of Ivy. Both films deal with a relationship between an African-American couple.

Film historian Donald Bogle has credited Lincoln with being an important transitional figure in the portrayal of African Americans on the screen: “She wasn’t a nurturing mammy figure or oversexed. . . . It’s an image the media is not interested in or not comfortable with from an African-American woman.”

But in time the serious film roles dried up. Lincoln did later land several small TV roles, however, and Spike Lee cast her in his 1990 jazz tribute film Mo’ Better Blues. Despondent after her divorce from Roach and disillusioned with America’s social biases, Lincoln checked herself into a psychiatric hospital. During the ’70s, she seldom performed in the States, choosing instead to tour Europe and Africa.

In 1973 she released her comeback album, People in Me. Since then, Lincoln has released a string of acclaimed albums on the Enja and Verve labels. A new and as yet unnamed Verve album is due for release in the next few weeks.

For Lincoln, music–jazz music in particular–remains a force for good in the world, a pure and tangible power that can heal hearts and shape lives. “The only communion I have with this spiritual part of me that is called God is through the work that I have, through music, through words,” she says. “Nobody will ever know of you except from what you leave behind. If you practice the arts, then you’re somebody here. If you don’t, you’re not.”

The Abbey Lincoln Quartet perform Sunday, June 8, at 1pm at the Rodney Strong Vineyards, 11455 Redwood Hwy., Healdsburg. The James Newton Quartet open the concert. Tickets are $30. (See the Calendar for complete festival schedule.) 707.433.4633.

From the May 29-June 4, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Tubby’s Restaurant and North Light Books

-
0

Shopping Center Cuisine in Cotati

By Sara Bir

There is no such thing as a quaint or charming shopping center. There just isn’t. With their vast, cracked-asphalt parking lots and traffic-jam-instigating accessibility, shopping centers may play host to errand running, but they are very rarely pleasure destinations.

Still, as shopping centers go, Rancho Cotati is a model of the genre. All in one center you can find Chinese, Thai, and Mexican food, fish and chips, barbecue, a cafe, a diner, and a bar. Plus there’s Oliver’s Market, which offers a world of takeout (or eat-in) items. So it’s not an exaggeration to say that Rancho Cotati feeds Cotati.

Tubby’s has been in the Rancho Cotati Shopping Center for five years. Before that, it was on Highway 116 for 20 years. Debbie Stevenson has been owner for two years, and she worked at Tubby’s for years before that. Terminally late, I just got around to eating there two weeks ago.

Of very serious note is the Two-by-Four Special: two pancakes or pieces of French toast, two eggs done as per request, two links of sausage, and two slices of bacon. That’s right, double-down on the pork products. And the eggs too, if you consider that eggs feature prominently in both French toast and pancakes.

If you get your eggs over easy and the yolk is nice and runny, you can puncture the whites and let the yolk ooze across the pancakes or French toast as if it were poor person’s hollandaise, and–oh, God!–it’s disgusting heaven, a marriage of the rich and yolky with the spongy and sweet. Their waffles are crisp and golden, and their pancakes are flying-saucer huge, nearly drooping over the rim of the plate. Plus the waitstaff refills coffee with the alacrity of squirrels on meth.

For $7.25, the Two-by-Four is a stellar breakfast value, especially considering how apparent it is that Tubby’s uses ingredients of higher quality than your typical diner does. They don’t use any frozen or canned foods–“hands-on food” is how Stevenson put it.

What Tubby’s makes up for in vittles it lacks in atmosphere. It’s a fairly open, undecorated space with booths and tables, and with little art, in the form of vintage ads, on the walls. And it’s too big to be a hole in the wall; it’s more like a house in the wall. I still prefer the interior of Cotati’s Mom’s Boarding House, which has a very American sort of faux down-home charm. But I must say that the grub at Tubby’s is far superior, and I shall perhaps have to begin splitting my greasy breakfast time between the two.

Lunches at Tubby’s are pretty bustling. I ordered a grilled ham and cheese sandwich ($7.25 with a side of coleslaw, potato salad, or cup of soup), and what arrived had a shocking similarity to a cafe croque monsieur. The bread was sliced white bread, true, but it had some body and structure, unlike the squishy, doughy Wonder-ific loaves at most diners.

The considerable stack of thinly sliced ham had a definite grain to it, meaning it was not some reconfigured cheap loaf of hammy lunchmeat. A pickle spear, sliced tomato, green lettuce leaf, and a slice of red onion came on the side.

The side of tortilla soup wound up trumping the sandwich, though. For a cup of soup, this was a very substantial helping, more like a minibowl. It was also light on the broth–perhaps because they were getting to the end of the pot, who knows–but it was at least 50 percent corn, with some cubed chicken and some nice, freshly fried tortilla strips, all topped with a sprinkling of cilantro.

The broth was oddly on the sweet side, but a few dashes of Tabasco fixed that up fast. Despite the overwhelming corn-to-soup ratio, it was so good that I promptly abandoned my very decent sandwich.

Tubby’s also has full “working man”-type lunches on the meat and potatoes tip, and though I wanted to check these out, I must admit that most writers do not work hard enough to justify having such a repast at the noon hour.

A few doors over from Tubby’s–and probably more in tune with a writer’s questionable dietary needs–is North Light Books and Cafe, and the similarities between the two generally end with them sharing the same shopping center. North Light is a smallish place, half bookstore and half cafe. In actuality, North Light is more of a cafe with a bookstore in it, and the two components integrate nicely enough not to detract from one another. The children’s book section is spread throughout the dining area, and racks of arty greeting cards mingle with the placement of the condiments.

North Light is frequented by Sonoma State students and faculty, and it’s no wonder. It’s one of the few places in all of Rohnert Park and Cotati that has any kind of “college town” feeling. People go there to study or chat or to just hang out. There’s an open mic night every Tuesday, and they have regular readings and musical performances, too.

Plus there’s the food, which is, happily, a big plus. It’s all made in-house, and the produce is, when possible, local.

The sandwiches there are healthful, flavorful, and eclectic. The roasted red pepper and provolone on chewy slices of pugliese with tapénade spread ($6.95 with a side salad) was robust in its filling, though the slightly slimy peppers would have benefited from a pat or two with a paper towel. And a more generous hand with the tapénade, which was swallowed up by the wonderful bubbles in the bread’s open crumb, would have given the sandwich more character. But the bread was terrific, and the whole works had been warmed up a bit–a considerate touch.

A side salad of crisp greens was dressed generously in North Light’s clean, understated vinaigrette. They make very simple, appealing salads that stand on their own next to an entrée or sandwich, instead of being there as an afterthought.

There’s always a special at North Light to catch the eye (usually between $7 and $9). The goat cheese crêpes, topped with a mushroom cream sauce, were stellar and very rich. Less appealing was the eggplant parmesan, a dry, dense square whose eggplant slices were unappealingly firm instead of meaty or rich.

The soups at North Light change daily. We tried the cheddar-cauliflower soup ($4.95 bowl), which was just as cheddary as a good homemade macaroni and cheese, like diluting a good Mornay sauce with puréed cauliflower.

My major complaint with North Light is their dearth of black pepper. A kind little grind of black pepper would really bring those sandwiches, soups, and salads to life. And yet there is none to be found–no detectable pepper in the food, no black pepper shakers on the tables. Sigh.

The tasty treats at North Light are baked in-house, and their freshness is easy to detect. Compared to the stuff at Starbucks or Peet’s or most any given cafe, they kick ass. The massive chocolate-oat bar ($2) was not the dry mess of oats I had feared but a tender, sweet crumble that sandwiched a luscious milk-chocolate layer. And the sweet potato crumble ($2.35) boasted a filling with a pure, untampered sweet-potato flavor, with a sugary, buttery streusel topping it that imparted a pleasing crunch.

The berry-beet brownie ($2) was, as Mr. Bir du Jour noted, “good if you like beets.” It’s also good if you like your brownies on the cakey side. Swirls of a jammy berry filling tempered the beetiness.

North Light’s breakfast menu looks very appealing–toast, pastries, oatmeal, omelets, French toast. Tubby’s has, for the moment, harnessed all of my eating-out breakfast inclinations, though, particularly with their waffles. So I never was able to check out North Light’s quite possibly leaner breakfasts, but I suppose that’s the hazard of having these two establishments so close to each other: One is bound to distract you from the other at some point.

Tubby’s Restaurant. 560 E. Cotati Ave., Cotati. Monday-Saturday, 6am-3pm; Sunday, 7am-3pm. 707.792.1232.

North Light Books and Cafe. 550 E. Cotati Ave., Cotati. Monday-Friday, 7am-9pm; Saturday, 8am-7pm; Sunday, 9am-6pm. 707.792.4300.

From the May 29-June 4, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Healdsburg Community Band

-
0

Community bands are back–and they’re bigger than ever

A soft rain has begun to fall over the town of Healdsburg this evening, but inside the band room of Healdsburg High School, it is dry and cozy and warm. A bit too warm. The collected members of the Healdsburg Community Band have just run through a half-dozen rousing tunes–including “Circus Days,” “The Circus Bee,” and “The Greatest Show on Earth”–all in preparation for the ensemble’s upcoming concert of (you guessed it) circus music.

The temperature is rising in the room, but neither the heat inside nor the rain outside seem to have dampened the band’s spirits. After opening a door to let some cool air in, band director Lew Sbrana, casually attired in old slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, stands grinning at the loose semicircle of about 40 similarly clad musicians, ranging in age from 18 to 80, most of whom–trumpet or saxophone or drumstick in hand–sit chattering and smiling right back at Sbrana. On everyone’s stand is music for their next piece, Harold L. Walter’s classic circus anthem “Copacabana.”

The director raises his baton. “Have fun with this one, folks,” he exhorts the room. He gives the downbeat, and away they go.

All in all, it’s a fairly typical Tuesday night for the Healdsburg Community Band, formed by Sbrana over 21 years ago and peopled entirely by musically inclined volunteers. Running the gamut of age and skill level, the band boasts a roughly equal number of men and women players, most of them amateur musicians and all of them committed to the preservation and advancement of one of America’s most beloved–and formerly endangered–cultural institutions: the small-town community band.

Fortunately, the Healdsburg band is not alone. In the North Bay alone, there are currently eight all-volunteer community-based bands in operation (see sidebar). If one includes all-volunteer philharmonic orchestras, junior-college and youth ensembles, and amateur jazz and swing bands, that number rises to well over a dozen. Those inclined could conceivably attend a different band rehearsal every night of the week–and there are some who do exactly that.

Community bands, always lurking on the fringes, are suddenly a big deal again.

Sbrana started the Healdsburg version 21 years ago, when he was approached to form a Christmas brass band. At that time, Rohnert Park had formed a community band, which was just beginning to make joyful noise around the town, and Sbrana was inspired to expand the brass band into a full-fledged ensemble–with woodwinds, saxophones, timpani, and everything–if he could find anyone willing to play for the fun of it. He ran an add in the paper, asking for players.

A month later, the Healdsburg Community Band was officially formed, comprising nearly 30 people, with everyone from semiprofessional musicians to, as Sbrana affectionately describes them, “people who are just, you know, blowing air through their horns and having a good time.”

Having a good time, says Sbrana, is more or less what defines a community band, explaining why so many people give up an evening or two a week, just to play music for free–and for the love of it.

“Community bands are growing,” he says. “New bands are forming and the established bands are recruiting more and more players. Even at an amateur or community-band level, playing music is a wonderful avocation, a great hobby. We never hold tryouts. Anybody who wants to play in this band can drop in and play with us.

“Admittedly, we’re only an average band,” Sbrana adds with a laugh. “But we have fun, and that fun is incredibly contagious.”

Time for a bit of history.

According to professor Kenneth Kreitner, a music historian at the University of Memphis, the American amateur-band movement enjoyed its peak in the decades around 1900, but the movement actually began as the Civil War was ending. “A lot of guys came back to their home towns having heard the bands that traveled with the troops,” Kreitner explains, “and it became almost mandatory for any self-respecting town to have a band of some sort.”

The tradition seems to have gone strong until right around World War I, he reveals, chalking up the decline in amateur bands to several factors. “My sense is that it’s partly a matter of the rise of radio and recordings,” Kreitner says, “but also partly the rise of jazz, which used some of the same instruments but was just much cooler. I suspect that if I’d been a young trombonist in 1925, the old brass-band music would have sounded hopelessly old-fashioned–Mom’s music–the sort of thing you’d scorn.”

Though unable to pinpoint when exactly the current enthusiasm for community bands reemerged, he agrees that the phenomenon clearly seems to be on the rise. “A lot of bands that had fallen into desuetude have begun to be revived,” he says, adding, “There have been community bands all over the place all along, but they were sort of geeky and embarrassing until recently, when they have been embraced by the same impulse–mingled nostalgia and community feeling–that has made Victorian houses and bungalows attractive again.”

In other words, says Kreitner of the recent community-band rebirth across the country, “we’re embracing a past that has been waiting for us.”

Last year the Healdsburg band sold out their annual spring concert, a tribute to John Philip Sousa, filling every seat at Luther Burbank Center. Tickets for the upcoming circus concert–to be held at the Jackson Theater in Windsor–are already selling briskly, and Gary Young anticipates a full house when the Rohnert Park band he directs gives their annual Memorial Day concert at the Rohnert Park Community Center.

“There’s so much band activity in the area, right now, that all the bands have to work hard to plan around each other,” admits Young, who also plays baritone sax in the Healdsburg band on Tuesdays. “Community bands have become very important to people, especially the people who play in them.”

So who exactly are those people, and why would they give up their evenings to play old-time band music?

Debbie and Steve Binninger–French horn and percussion, respectively–are prime examples of the average community-band members in that they use the band as a means to reconnect with the instrument they put away after high school. Debbie, who began playing the French Horn in fourth grade, gave it up while in college. Many years later, a band-teacher friend talked her into joining the Healdsburg band, thus jump-starting her musical side.

“And now, it’s what I do to stay sane,” she laughs. Steve, who now plays in a couple of Christian bands as well, tells a similar story. “I started playing about the same age as Debbie,” he says, “and I took about an eight-year break when I went into the Air Force. Then, when Debbie and I got together, she invited me to come down here, and I’ve
been coming ever since.”

That same story is told over and over again.

“I hadn’t played since high school,” says Donna Cambra, a retired Army nurse, “but these people have been so welcoming and encouraging–and I discovered that playing came back to me pretty quickly.”

Adds Carolyn Williams, a percussionist with the Rohnert Park band who’s been recruited by Sbrana to join the Healdsburg band for the circus concert, “If it weren’t for community bands, I wouldn’t have anywhere to play. No matter how bad my day was on Monday, I love going to band practice. The camaraderie, the kidding around, making obscure joke about musical terminology–it’s so great that the band geeks still get to hang out with each other.”

For some, the bands is more than a hobby.

“A community band is musical therapy,” says Young. “I see it all the time. People come out here at 8:00 for a practice, and when they walk in, they may not be in the mood for it. But by 9:30, when the practice is over, they don’t want to go home, because they’re so energized!”

“I really felt something was missing in my life,” explains Juliet Babcock, “and I figured out that it was music.” She promptly joined the Rohnert Park band as a percussionist. “And,” she says, “I’ve been having a ball ever since.”

The Healdsburg Community Band presents ‘Circus Days’ on Saturday, May 31, at 7:30 at the Sonoma Country Day School’s Jackson Theater in Windsor. $10 advance; $12 at the door. Call Lew Sbrana at 707.433.3413 for ticket information. The Rohnert Park Community Band’s annual Summer Serenade concert–a joint effort with the Rohnert Park Chorale–takes place on Sunday, June 22, at 2:30pm at Spreckels Performing Arts Center. $5 general admission; free for ages 12 and under.

Community Bands of the North Bay

Healdsburg Community Band

Lew Sbrana, director (le******@*tt.net). 707.433.3413. Rehearsals at Healdsburg High School, Tuesdays, 7:30-9:30pm.

Rohnert Park Community Band

Gary Young, director (ga*******@*tt.net). 707.585.7550 or www.rpafta.org. Rehearsals at the Burton Avenue Recreation Center, Mondays, 8­9:30pm.

Petaluma Community Band

Jimmy Reynolds, director (bu************@**me.com). 707.769.9521 or www.petalumacommunityband.org. Rehearsals in the Casa Grande High School band room, Mondays, 7­9pm.

Old Adobe Band

Laura Comyns, director (pi*****@*ol.com). 707.823.9061. Rehearsals at Sonoma Mountain School in Petaluma, Wednesdays, 7:15­8:30pm.

Sonoma Home Town Band

Rich Schneider, director (ri******@*om.com). 707.996.3413. Rehearsals at the Sonoma Developmental Center’s McDougal Building, Sundays, 7­9pm.

New Horizons Band

Lew Sbrana, director (le******@*tt.net). 707.433.4313. Rehearsals at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Rosa, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9­11am.

The Las Galinas Valley Sanitary District Non-Marching Band (also known as the Sewer Band)

Benedetta Dalbesio, director (hu******@*ol.com). Rehearals at Miller Creek School in Marinwood, Mondays, 7:45­9:45pm.

From the May 29-June 4, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Under Pressure’

-
0
‘Under Pressure’

Star Power: Sol LeWitt’s stars are a little bit Moorish, a little bit rock and roll.

Paper Trails

SMOVA’s traveling ‘Under Pressure’ exhibit makes its mark

By Gretchen Giles

Printmaker David Lasry is an inveterate collaborator, even partnering up with artists without their knowledge. Owner of New York’s Two Palms Press, Lasry is concerned with drawing out the print potentials of those who have never used the medium. And so when star painter Chuck Close repeatedly ignored his invitations to work together, Lasry simply appropriated one of Close’s paintings. Anecdote reports that when he sent the print to Close with a note explaining this is what he could do for him, the artist phoned Lasry the very next day.

Two of the resulting prints from this collaboration were to have been famous self-portraits of Close, screens of his recognizable squared-off representational abstracts, work that is just color up-close but clear image from a distance. Imagine the Sonoma Museum of Visual Arts staff’s surprise when they uncrated Close’s work the other day to discover that instead of Chuck, they had Phil.

Two Palms had sent the wrong work. But not to worry. Now part of this traveling exhibition titled “Under Pressure: Prints from the Two Palms Press,” running through July 27 (the first show of this size and stature to be exhibited at the SMOVA), the two prints of Phil are darn nice, too.

Featuring a sum total of seven years of collaboration with 12 established artists, including Close, Kiki Smith, Terry Winters, and Sol LeWitt, “Under Pressure” comes to the North Bay after two years on the road, most recently stopping over at New York’s Cooper Union. And in some respects, its arrival puts the small stamp of Sonoma onto the national map.

“It’s a step into a world of art headliners,” says SMOVA executive director Gay Dawson. “We really wanted to increase our commitment to bringing art to Sonoma County, to a part of our conversation about the national scene. It also increases our curatorial resources,” she laughs, “because I don’t have to go out and find all of the work and bring it back myself.”

But Dawson did go out and bring back the work of four local artists–Frank Ryan, Claude Smith, Jennifer Sturgill, and Mario Uribe–for the companion exhibit “Innovations in Printmaking from Sonoma County,” showing concurrently in the Atrium and Passage galleries. Other than Sturgill, who is a master printmaker with San Francisco’s Aurobora Press, none of the other three are primarily printmakers, presenting them the fresh challenge that was also Lasry’s approach.

Translation is perhaps the best metaphor for taking work created in one medium and producing it within the elastic limits of print techniques. For example, New York artist Jennifer Stockholder ordinarily creates found-object installations. While working with Lasry, she managed to sneak such items as orange peels and shag carpeting into her prints.

Former Two Palms employee Pedro Barbeito makes bas-relief three-dimensional ovals reminiscent of the Starship Enterprise were it to fly overhead. And LeWitt’s famous multipointed stars, each printed individually per his written instructions–like a brain in a jar, LeWitt conducts his work but never actually produces it himself–are a special treat to see.

For followers of the home scene, the work of Ryan, Smith, Sturgill, and Uribe is a fortunate collective. Ryan, who is 24, immensely gifted, and capable of innocently stirring up much brouhaha from sniffers and supporters alike as to whether his work merits the attention it’s received, is off to UCLA grad school this fall so won’t be here to kick around much longer. Uribe’s masterful Zen meditations on the circle resonate with a palimpsest of color, and regarding Sturgill’s novelistic overlays of woodblock, collage, and drawing is like gratefully plunging into a favorite read.

Perhaps most exciting, Smith has taken his populist “G-Spot” survey, in which he enlisted his Graton neighbors in the participatory pleasure he feels in creating art, has reappeared as a oversized four-panel print that’s abstracted and expanded since first exhibited at the now-defunct MeSH Gallery last fall.

The artists working with Lasry often came up with entirely new techniques in the printing process. Minimalist painter Mel Bochner, whose work examines the ordered structure of mathematics and language, utilizes the first task of a press, that of lettering. In his monoprint If the Color Changes, a babble of overlaid German and English words, only the final warning phrase is clear: “One did not observe”–a mistake one is certain not to make in viewing the collective “Under Pressure.”

‘Under Pressure: Print Works from Two Palms Press’ and ‘Innovations in Printmaking from Sonoma County’ show through July 27. A reception is slated for Saturday, May 24, 5-7pm. Free. Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, at the Luther Burbank Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. Museum hours are Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm; Sunday, 1-4pm. Admission is $5; free to members. 707.527.0297.

From the May 22-28, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Summer Guide 2003

-
0
Summer Guide 2003

Love and Affection: Bittersweet and earnest Joan Armatrading performs at the Luther Burbank Center on June 24.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

The North Bay offers more summer events than you can shake a popsicle stick at

By Sara Bir

Jazz festivals, blues festivals, accordion festivals, film festivals, food festivals, wine festivals, beer festivals, health and harmony festivals, art festivals, family festivals. Oh, and some concert series and fairs, too. There are a gazillion summer doings in the North Bay–so many that it’s nearly too daunting to single out which communal summer fun-time events to participate in. That’s where our handy Bohemian Summer Guide comes in. Heck, we even have a scattering of sports events listed this year! And remember, it’s better to have too much to choose from than not enough, so embrace the summery spirit of excess, pull on some too-short cutoffs, slip into a pair of flip-flops, and act the part of a lazy summer bum. We won’t call you on it.

[ May | June | July | August | September | Ongoing ]

May

Wine Country Antiques Show

Over 60 local, national, and international exhibitors will showcase exquisite pieces from around the globe, including furniture, folk art, rugs, and antiquarian books, and in styles from Spanish colonial to Ming dynasty. Preview gala: May 23. $100. Show: May 24-26, 11am-5pm. $10 day; $15 run of show. Chardonnay Hall, Napa Exposition Center, 1040 Main St., Napa. 650.548.6700. www.antiques-shows.com.

Sonoma Valley Open Studios Weekends and Preview Exhibit

This is the guild’s 12th annual open-studios event, with artists from all over the Valley of the Moon inviting the public into their homes and workspaces over two weekends, May 24-25 and May 31-June 1. Preview exhibit at the Arts Guild of Sonoma Gallery runs through June 1. 140 E. Napa St., Sonoma. 707.996.3115.

Jenner Concert Series

Head way out to Jenner for some hot music in the boondocks. On May 24, Mitch Woods and His Rocket 88’s rock the house; on June 28, Big Brother and the Holding Company stop by. $15-$20. Benefits the Jenner Watershed Fund. Jenner Theater, behind gas station, downtown Jenner. 707.865.1938. Go to www.jennerconcerts.org for more concerts as they are added.

Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Festival

Find plenty to keep you busy at this ninth annual festival. May is Asian Pacific Islander Month, and the Bay Area Discovery Museum celebrates with martial arts demonstrations, taiko drummers, Hawaiian music and hula, Cambodian and Filipino dance, and craft projects. May 25, 10am-5pm. Bay Area Discovery Museum, 557 McReynolds Road, Fort Baker, Sausalito. Free. 415.487.4398. www.badm.org.

Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade

Folks from all corners of the community come out to participate in this parade, which has a high participation of clubs and organizations. May 26, 10:30am. Parade begins at Old Mill School, travels down Miller Avenue, and ends at Tamalpais High School. Free.

Wine Country Classic

It may be the Infineon Raceway now, but expect the same mix of classic cars, action-packed racing, and nostalgia-laden auto rallies as before at this former Sears Point three-day event. It all starts with the Vintage Car Rally through the Sonoma wine country. May 30-June 1. Infineon Raceway, Highways 37 and 121, Sonoma. 1.800.870.RACE. www.infineonraceway.com.

Park Bark

Invest some quality time with Rover at the Park Bark, “the biggest doggie party in Sonoma County.” Sponsored by All Tails Wagging Veterinary Clinic, the Park Bark puts pooch in touch with dog games, contests, an agility course, and a canine freestyle demonstration. May 31, 1-5pm. Galvin Dog Park, Santa Rosa. 707.525.9445.

Art at the Source

Travel through Sonoma County to see sculptors, jewelers, potters, painters, book binders, fabric artists, printers, and photographers in their native habitats. Two weekends: May 31-June 1 and June 7-8. Preview exhibit runs through June 8. Maps can be found at www.artatthesource.org or at Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 6780 Depot St., Sebastopol. 707.829.4797.

‘Wrongful Doings at Woeful Ranch’

A cast of 46 fifth-graders teams up with local actor and playwright Squire Fridell for the Dunbar School’s annual melodrama. Boo! Hiss! Hooray! May 30-31, 6pm; June 1, 4pm. Haver Outdoor Stage, 11700 Dunbar Road, Glen Ellen. $8 adults; $4 children under 12. 707.321.0962. www.dunbarschool.com.

Laguna Festival

Celebrate “Our Green Island,” the Laguna de Santa Rosa, which is one of the county’s most ecologically sensitive areas. Hayrides, hiking, scavenger hunts, sculpture workshops, and live jazz are included in this family event. May 31, 10am-2pm. Sebastopol Community Center, 390 Morris St. Free. 707.824.2966. www.lagunadesantarosa.org.

Ukiah Reggae and World Music Festival

Salsa, funk, gospel, and, of course, reggae–as well as DJs galore–bring the world to this festival, featuring Vision and Kibah from the Wailers. May 31, noon-9:30pm. $30-$35. Ukiah Fairgrounds, 1055 N. State St., Ukiah. 415.561.7909. www.redwoodempirefair.com.

Find the Duende: Sonoma State presents flamenco diva La Rubia on June 1.

June

La Rubia at Flamenco Stage

Flamenco Universal’s Flamenco Stage presents Bay Area performer Patricia Inez –“La Rubia”–dancing with local artists, while Seville native Manolo Vargas provides the music. June 1, 2pm. Evert B. Person Theatre, Sonoma State University, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. $20 advance; $22 door. 707.573.8450.

Cabaret Benefit for CASA

Great songs of American musical theater make up With a Song in My Heart, featuring cabaret singer Carolyn Bloom and performed in a secluded garden setting. Proceeds go to CASA, a group that works with abused and neglected children involved in the court system. June 1, 4pm. Napa location disclosed with ticket purchase. $45. 707.252.6222.

Beyond the Gates

Venture past the facades of the grand estate gardens of Napa Valley on tours led by master gardeners. Shuttle to each of the four estates on an air-conditioned bus and sit down to a gourmet lunch with wine at one of the gardens. June 1. Various locations in Napa Valley. $150. Benefits Land Trust of Napa County. 707.252.3270. www.napalandtrust.org.

Camp Winnarainbow Scholarship Fund Benefit Boogie

Join Wavy Gravy and cohorts Gregg’s Eggs and the Flying Other Brothers for an afternoon of jam-rock, fab food, and family fun. Funds scholarships for low-income and homeless kids to attend Camp Winnarainbow. June 1, 2-6pm. San Geronimo Cultural Center, 6350 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. $15 general; $50 VIP Hall of Smooze. 415.488.9385. www.gdtstoo.com.

38th Annual Ox Roast at the Valley of the Moon Art Association Art Show

Hundreds of pounds of meat sizzle away at this beefy annual event. Throughout the weekend, the Valley of the Moon Art Association holds an outdoor exhibition of locally created paintings, drawings, and crafts. June 1, 11am-5pm. Sonoma Plaza, Sonoma. 707.938.4626.

Healdsburg Jazz Festival

Jazz emanates among the sun-dappled grapevines at this eagerly anticipated indoor/outdoor jazz institution. Featured musicians include the James Newton Quartet, the Abbey Lincoln Quartet, Joe Lovano and friends, and the Healdsburg High School Jazz Band. June 1-8. Various downtown Healdsburg locations. Tickets are available online at www.healdsburgjazzfestival.com or by calling 707.433.4633.

Peace and Justice Center’s Day in the Park

Miguel Molina and Wendy Trigueros emcee Day in the Park, a free celebration of community and involvement. Performers include the Raging Grannies, Love Choir, and Eagle Spirit, and local organizations like the ACLU and Veterans for Peace will have representatives present. June 1, noon-4pm. Juilliard Park, Santa Rosa. 707.575.8902.

Mill Valley Scrabble Tournament

The clicking of tiles will fill the air at the 2003 Mill Valley Scrabble Tournament, hosted by the Bay Area Scrabble Club at their main North Bay stomping grounds, Round Table Pizza. Registration at the door begins at 1pm. June 1, 1:30pm. Round Table Pizza, 50 Belvedere Drive, Mill Valley. $20 admission, with a $5 minimum food order. 415.468.4537.

Napa Valley Wine Auction

Star chefs, gala events, dancing, and fever-pitch bidding on fat-cat wine lots make this the big daddy of the Napa social season. June 5-8. Various Napa Valley locations. www.napavintners.com.

Windsor Fine Arts Show

Thirty-six local artists will display juried works in various media, and the results of the judging will be announced at the opening reception, which also features light refreshments and live music by the Sequoia String Quartet. Opening reception: June 6, 6:30-8pm. Show: June 7-14, 10am-4pm daily. Huerta Gymnasium, 9291 Old Redwood Hwy. #200, Windsor. Free. 707.838.5382.

Beerfest

Help raise funds for charity by getting drunk in the sun! Face to Face/ Sonoma County AIDS Network’s Beerfest is a perennial favorite for suds ‘n’ grub lovers. June 7, 1-5pm at the LBC, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $28-$32. 707.544.1581. www.f2f.org.

Northern California Heritage Festival

A multicultural extravaganza–and that means booths offering up food, food, food! There’s more to do at the Heritage Festival than eating your way around the world, though. Watch traditional Greek, Scottish, Samoan, Portuguese and Pomo dance, listen to music from many cultures, and purchase authentic handicrafts. June 7, 10am-7pm. Petaluma Community Center, 320 N. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma. $5. 707.763.9556.

All Things Herbal Plant Sale

Herb it up at the Sonoma County Herb Exchange’s sale with medicinal herbs, native plants, cosmetics, and wreaths. June 7, 10am-4pm. Sebastopol Town Plaza. 707.824.1447. www.sonomaherbs.org.

Petaluma Open Studios

Members of the Petaluma Arts Association will open their studios to the art-lovin’ public. June 7-8, 10am-4pm. Maps are available at locations throughout Petaluma, or call 707.762.2801.

Marin Home Show

What goes with home and garden improvement? Why, jazz. Three hundred of the Bay Area’s top-of-the-line home and garden retailers will be on hand, as will a bevy of jazz bands such as Lee Press-On and the Nails. The “Jazz Jam Playoff” benefits Marin County public schools and music departments. June 7-8, Marin Center Civic Center, San Rafael. $6.50 general; free for children under 14. 415.472.3500. www.marinhomeshow.com.

Sonoma Collage Collective Art Show and Sale

Who needs Photoshop when you have scissors and a glue stick? The artists of the Sonoma Collage Collective are hosting their ninth annual show on the grounds of General Vallejo’s home, and access to both the show and the Vallejo estate are free all weekend. June 7-8, 10:30am-4pm. 20 W. Spain St., Sonoma.

Dipsea Race

Billed as “one of the oldest races in the world,” the Dipsea Race began in 1905 and has changed little since, except that every year it becomes more and more popular. While there may be older races in older countries, the Dipsea is still the king of spunk. June 8, 8:30am. Begins at Lytton Square, Mill Valley. 707.331.3550. www.dipsea.org.

Fitch Mountain Foot Race

The Healdsburg Kiwanis Club presents the 29th annual 3K- and 10K-foot race and walk on a course that meanders through quaint Healdsburg neighborhoods and around Fitch Mountain, bordering the Russian River. Both courses start and end at the historic Plaza Park. June 8. $20-$25. Registration begins at 7am; race begins at 8am. 707.576.6147.

Petaluma Riverfront Arts and Garden Festival

Local gardeners, artists, and chefs convene to support the arts in Petaluma. Check out the Petaluma Floating Gardens, fine wines, fine foods, and fine readings. June 9, 11am- 5pm, Fourth and A streets parking lot, Petaluma. 707.762.9348.

Hoochi-Doo Productions

Hoochi-Doo has moved to a new home at the Sonoma Community Center, and it brings with it a summer-long run of musicals and comedies: Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party (June 13-28), and the musical version of the film My Favorite Year (Aug. 1-30.) 276 E. Napa St., Sonoma. 707.938.4626, ext. 1. www.hoochi-dooproductions.com.

Arts Alive at Plaza Arts

The Healdsburg Arts Council’s Plaza Arts presents an exciting combination of gallery and demonstration art, with artists giving demos on-site. June 13-July 21. 130 Plaza St., Healdsburg. 707.431.1970.

Sonoma Lavender Festival

Open to the public for two days only, the Sonoma Lavender Barn invites guests to come and see a five-acre lavender farm in full bloom with farm tours, lavender massage, craft making, lavender cuisine, and a lavender marketplace. June 14-15, 10am-4pm. (Preview sale: June 13, 2-6pm.) Admission is $5 per car. 8537 Sonoma Hwy., Kenwood. 707.833.1330. www.sonomalavender.com.

Awed by Shocked: Michelle Shocked charms the Health and Harmony Festival on June 14-15.

Cotati Jazz Festival and Fine Arts Show

Over 40 jazz artists infiltrate three venues in downtown Cotati–Sweet Lou’s, Dos Amigos, and the Tradewinds, as well as La Plaza Park. Mel Graves, Banda de Luna, and Chuck Sher’s One World are a few of the names on the bill. And of course there will be wine and food. June 15, noon-9pm. Downtown Cotati. $10 adults; free for kids under 12. 707.795.5508.

Health and Harmony Festival

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Health and Harmony Festival is the largest event of its kind in the United States. Expect exhibitors, high-profile guest speakers, talented music acts, and hands-on activities. Coupled with headlining musicians Michelle Shocked and Ritchie Havens, that’s a lot of harmonic-healing bang for the buck. June 14-15. $17-$22 adults; $8-$10 seniors and teens. Kids under 10 are free. Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa. 707.547.9355. www.harmonyfestival.com.

Italian Street Painting Festival

See master street painters work side by side with student artists as they transform downtown San Rafael into a scale model of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Live music, Italian cuisine, and children’s activities give visitors more to do than just gawk at the breathtaking art. June 14-15. Fifth and A streets, San Rafael. 415.457.4878. www.youthinarts.org.

Sonoma-Marin Fair

Hollywood comes to the North Bay at this year’s fair. Well, sort of–“Hollywood” is the 2003 theme. A wine competition, destruction derby, livestock exhibits, petting zoo, cooking demonstrations, and rides, rides, rides keep the fair close to its roots. Pat Benatar, Tower of Power, and Carrot Top highlight the entertainment. June 18-22. Petaluma Fairgrounds. $12 adult; $8 children and seniors. 707.283.FAIR. www.sonoma-marinfair.org.

Healdsburg Lavender Festival

Presented by the North Coast Lavender Guild, this festival makes its debut with noted lavender expert Robert Kourik answering lavender-related questions and local chefs demonstrating lavender recipes. June 21, 9am-noon. Healdsburg Farmers’ Market, North and Vine streets. June 22, 11-5pm, Healdsburg Plaza. Free.
707.431.7626.

‘Best of the County’ Wine and Food Fundraiser

Sample local wines and foods from the top producers in Sonoma County. A silent auction and live music in the open air of Kendall-Jackson’s gardens provide distractions from eating and drinking. June 21, 6-8:30pm. 5007 Fulton Road, Windsor. $21-$25. Benefits Sonoma County Farmlands Group. 707.576.0162.

Oh, Rapture–It’s Scrapture!

Take junk, make it into art. It’s good for the earth and the soul. Plus it’s fun. Scrapture, the highly anticipated annual recycling sculpture event, is open to the public, with prizes awarded in categories for all ages. Just show up with your entry before noon and you’re set. June 21, 10am-4pm. La Plaza Park, Cotati. Free. 707.795.13950. www.garbage.org.

Marin Art Festival

Take pops out for some art-browsing over Father’s Day weekend. The Marin Art Festival combines the casual elegance of a lawn party with Marin’s finest artists in a setting that’s grassy and spacious. June 21-22, Marin Center’s Lagoon Park, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. $8. 415.388.4386. www.marinartfestival.org.

Lick It Up: Dan Hicks brings his Hot Licks to the Russian River Blues Fest on June 28-29.

San Anselmo Art Festival

Live music, an arts and crafts area, and food aplenty round out the attractions at this charming, small-town festival, held in the hub of San Anselmo. June 21-22, 10am-6pm. San Anselmo Avenue between Bolinas and Tamalpais streets. 510.232.5030.

Red and White Ball

The color scheme of this annual Sonoma to-do is meant to reflect the wines of the valley, not the costumes of the White Stripes. Still, it would be wise to raid the wardrobe of Meg and Jack White for this gala, the funds of which go to improving the Sonoma Plaza. Dressing up is half the fun, and the dancing stretches on into the midnight hour. June 21. Sonoma Plaza, Sonoma. $65. 707.935.3704.

Zarzuela!

One of the few places in the nation that stages the beloved Spanish operetta form of zarzeula, the Jarvis Conservatory pulls out all of the stops to put on shows teeming with humor, drama, songs, and dance. This year’s zarzuela, La Chulapona, features a cast of 56 performers. June 26-29. Jarvis Conservatory, 1711 Main St., Napa. $45 general; $30 students. 707.255.5445.

Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival

Utah Phillips, Taj Mahal, Dave Alvin, Patty Larkin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nina Gerber, and Eddie from Ohio highlight an impressive roster of talent at this year’s festival. June 27-29, Black Oak Ranch, Laytonville. 707.823.1511. www.monitor.net/kate.

Sonoma County Hot Air Balloon Classic

Ride in a balloon or stay grounded and just watch the graceful, colorful forms float through the sky. June 28-29, 7am-11am. Keiser Community Park, Windsor River Road (between Windsor and Starr roads), Windsor. $5 advance; $8 day of the event. 707.837.1884. www.schabc.org.

Russian River Blues Festival

The legendary Etta James returns, along with the Robert Cray Band, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Zigaboo Modeliste, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, and a boatload of others. June 28-29. Johnson’s Beach, Guerneville. $40-$180. 510.655.9471. www.russianriverbluesfest.com.

Vineyard Opera

An afternoon of wine, food, and music awaits guests of the North Bay Italian Cultural Foundation and Viansa Winery. Five gifted vocalists will perform selections by Copland, Puccini, Verdi, and Humperdinck, under the direction of pianist Donald Tarpley. June 29, noon-3pm. 25200 Arnold Dr., Sonoma. $10-12 donation. Reservations required. 707.591.9696.

Photograph by Carl Stunda

Diva Divine: Keely Smith joins Karrin Allyson, Dianne Reeves, and Diane Schuur for the Divas of Jazz Festival on June 29.

Divas of Jazz Festival

Dames of jazz Karrin Allyson, Keely Smith, Dianne Reeves, and Diane Schuur will bring a day of top-notch musical entertainment to Rohnert Park, a place that for sure could use some jazz. June 29, 1-7pm. Rohnert Park Stadium, 1500 Labath Ave. $45-$55. 707.528.TIXS.

Hallberg Butterfly Gardens Open House

Two book signings, by the authors of A Class Trip to Miss Hallberg’s Butterfly Garden and The Butterfly Gardener’s Guide, will be held at this open house that’s also a plant, stationery, and book sale, with self-guided walking tours of this historic habitat garden. June 29, 10am-4pm. Hallberg Butterfly Gardens, 8687 Oak Grove Ave., Sebastopol. 707.823.3420.

July

Marin County Fair

The legacy and the future of the Golden Gate Bridge will be the theme of the 58th Marin County Fair. In fact, the 1936 Packard that was the first vehicle to cross the bridge will be on display. But there are many, many reasons to go to the fair: fireworks, fine arts, food, a film festival, farm animals, funk music–and those are only the f reasons! July 2-6. Marin County Civic Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. $9-$11. 415.499.6400. www.marinfair.org.

Cotati Heritage Festival and Kids Parade

Festive fun for the whole family with food, arts, and postparade activities. July 3, 10am-3pm. La Plaza Park, Cotati. 707.792.3939.

Green Music Festival

Artistic director Jeffrey Kahane has put together a “fantastico” program of events for this year’s festival, which kicks off, as always, with the red, white, and boom of Independence Day on the Green’s patriotic favorites and fireworks. The popular chamber music series returns, and “Salsa Vivaldi” puts classical and salsa musicians to the task of putting their own Puerto Rican spin on the Italian composer. July 4-Aug. 13. Sonoma State University, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. 707.546.8742. www.greenmusicfestival.org.

Robert Mondavi Summer Festival

How fast do these events sell out? Fast, man, but if you don’t dally, there may be tickets left for this series of top-notch performers descending upon the Napa Valley: Preservation Hall Jazz Band (July 5), Harry Belafonte (July 12), India.Arie (July 29), Norman Brown (July 26), and Los Lobos (Aug. 2.) Robert Mondavi Vineyards, Oakville. $45-$95. 1.800.RMW.JAZZ.

Rawstock

Don’t bring your Coleman stove to this festival, which is a three-day affair packed to the gills with organic fruits, vegetables, and innovative raw cuisine demo-ed by premier raw-food chefs. Speakers and musical entertainment, too. July 5-7, Ocean Song, Occidental. 707.829.0362. www.rawstock.us.

Sonoma County Showcase of Wine and Food

The live barrel auction and dinner is one of the main centerpieces of the Sonoma County Showcase of Wine and Food, a marathon of fine dining and drinking from July 10-12. Winery luncheons and dinners culminate in the “Taste of Sonoma County,” a big mess of tastings from wineries, brewers, and top-quality food producers from all over the North Bay. 800.939.7666. www.sonomawine.com.

Heart of the Forest Faire

Relive the days of Elizabethan-era England (with better sanitation) over five weekends in July with this second annual extravaganza. Crafts, jousting, and hearty food and bevs will get you in the spirit. Saturdays and Sundays, July 12-Aug. 10, 11am-7pm. Stafford Lake, 3549 Novato Blvd., Novato. Presale tickets $16 adults; $6 children. 415.897.4555.

Catalan Festival

Discover the cuisine, culture, and dance of Catalonia through visiting the Gloria Ferrer winery. Spanish-flaired food, glasses of sparkling wines, and lively Spanish music put the c in cava. July 19-20, 11am-4pm. Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves, 23555 Carneros Hwy., Sonoma. $24-$35. 707.933.1999. www.gloriaferrer.com.

Sonoma County Fair

Horse races, flower shows, snow cones, fast rides operated by guys with mullets–it’s fair time! Trick Pony, Queen Ida, and Chuck Mangione are a few of the bigger names of this year’s entertainment. July 22- Aug. 4. Sonoma County Fairgrounds, 1350 Bennett Valley Road, Santa Rosa. $7 general; $2 kids seven to 12; free for kids six and under. 707.545.4200. www.sonomacountyfair.com.

Mendocino Herb Fair

The first-ever Mendocino Herb Fair features herbalists and aromatherapists from Northern California, as well as herb growers and herbal educators. It will also coincide with the Mendocino Street Fair and the Mendocino Music Festival, so you can triple up on summer festival fun. July 26, 10am-5pm. Natural Herb Gardens, 45084 Little Lake St., Mendocino. Free. 707.937.4999.

Wine Country Film Festival

You never know what’s coming up with the Wine Country Film Festival, an institution that has historically come through with amazing and eye-opening tributes, film forums, and special programs. This year’s Sonoma venues are Kunde Estate, the Sebastiani Theatre, and the Kenwood Depot. July 31-Aug. 10. 707.935.FILM. ww.winecountryfilmfest.com.

August

Music in the Vineyards

Retreat to the coolness of barrel rooms in the dog days of August for a soothing dose of chamber music. Nationally known artists in residence perform chamber music in intimate winery settings. Aug. 1-17. 707.258.5999. www.napavalleymusic.org.

Reggae on the River

A pilgrimage for many, Reggae on the River squeezes more reggae and world music into three days than you can shake a dreadlock at. Ben Harper, Jimmy Cliff, Big Mountain, Ghetto Youth Crew, Wayne Wonder, and others will grace the stage for the festival’s 20th anniversary celebration. Aug. 1-3. French’s Camp, Piercy. 707.923.4583. www.reggaeontheriver.com.

Petaluma Summer Music Festival

Music is in mansions, the library, and at the Cinnabar Theater during the Petaluma Summer Music Festival. Classical, Indian, Celtic, and folk are just a few of the styles represented. Festival openers the Artifacts play on the popular International Nosh Night. Aug. 2-23. Various Petaluma locations. $12-$30. 707.763.8920.

All Nations Bigtime

The Petaluma Adobe’s sixth annual celebration of Native American culture offers music, dancing, crafts, and food. Aug. 2-3, 10am-5pm. Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park, 3325 Adobe Road, Petaluma. $3. 707.762.4871.

Great Petaluma Quilt Show

One of California’s largest, nonjudged outdoor quilt shows, the Petaluma Quilt Show offers more than just quilts. There’s also a craft fair, plus the general fun of historic downtown Petaluma. Aug. 9, 10am-4:30pm. Kentucky and Fourth streets (craft fair in Walnut Park). Free. 707.778.8015. www.visitpetaluma.com.

Annual Adobe Fiesta

Similar to the idea of the All Nations Bigtime, except this one’s a celebration of Hispanic culture, with arts and crafts, food, dancing, and music. Aug. 10, 11am-4pm. Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park, 3325 Adobe Road. $2. 707.762.4871.

Sonoma Valley Wine Festival and 100K Liberty Ride

Ride a bike over scenic rural roads, then drink wine. The 100K ride meanders through Sonoma and Napa Valleys, and ends at the Sonoma Valley Wine Festival, where folks can sample wines from the Sonoma Valley Vintners Association. Aug. 10. Ride: 7am. Wine festival: 12:30-4pm. Sonoma Development Center, Arnold Drive, Eldridge. $15-$45. Proceeds benefit advocacy programs for people with developmental disabilities. 707.938.6805.

Healdsburg Farmers’ Market Zucchini Festival

Just how big is that mutant zucchini in the backyard garden? Haul it on over to the Zucchini Festival to find out, where there will be a giant zucchini contest, zucchini poetry, zucchini baked goods, and even zucchini car races. Aug. 15, 9am-noon. Healdsburg Farmer’s Market, North and Vine streets, Healdsburg. Free. 707.431.1956.

Sonoma County Dixie Jazz Festival

As much jazz as can be crammed into one hotel in a three-day period. Now in its 21st year, the festival aims to support and perpetuate traditional jazz. Aug. 15-17. Tickets are $15-$75. Doubletree Hotel, 101 Golf Course Drive, Rohnert Park. 707.539.3494.

Cotati Accordion Festival

The one, the only, the best. No other festival promises a “Lady of Spain”-a-thon, and no other town square boasts such a prominent statue of accordion player Jim Boggio. Aug. 23-24. Cotati Town Square, Cotati. $15 one day; $25 both days; children under 15 are free. 707.664.0444.

A Little Dream: Marin Shakepeare presents ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ starting Aug. 29.

Pacific Coast Air Museum Air Show

Celebrating 100 years of powered flight, you can find everything from P-51s to a C-130 at the Pacific Coast Air Museum’s biggest show yet. Aug. 23-24, 9am-4pm. Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, 2330 Airport Blvd., Santa Rosa. $12 adults; $5 kids and seniors. 707.566.8380. www.pacificcoastairmuseum.org

Solar and Good Living Festival

Experience the latest renewable energy technologies and healthy lifestyle practices at SolFest, the festival that’s fun and eco-friendly. Aug. 23-24, Real Goods Solar Living Institute, Hopland. 707.744.2017. www.solfest.org.

Sausalito Art Festival

Known as much for the entertainment (Blind Boys of Alabama, Iris Dement, Dr. John) as for the art, the Sausalito Art Festival brings more than 20,000 original works of art together for one of the nation’s most popular outdoor art festivals. Aug. 29-Sept. 1. Bay Model Visitor Center and Marinship Park, Sausalito. $20 general; $10 seniors; $5 kids. 415.705.5555. www.sausalitoartfestival.org.

September

Heirloom Tomato Festival

No regular old tomatoes here! Garden tours, live music, winetastings, and a juried art show are among the nontomato activities in store. Sept. 6, 11am-2pm. Kendall-Jackson Wine Center, 5007 Fulton Road, Santa Rosa. $40 advance purchase only. 800.769.3649. www.kj.com.

Jazz on the River

The world-class jazz of George Benson, Al Jarreau, Stanley Clarke, Orqesta la Moderna Tradición, and other notables comes to the Russian River. Sept. 6-7. Johnson’s Beach, Guerneville. $40-$100. 510.655.9471. www.russianriverbluesfest.com/jazz.

Sonoma County Book Fair

Packed from one end of the day to the other, like a bookcase fit to bursting, the Sonoma County Book Fair is a reader’s dream. As of press time, organizers were still pretty close-lipped, but short-story wunderkind ZZ Packer is on the list, for sure. Sept. 13. Events are centered in Santa Rosa.

Ongoing

Luther Burbank Center

Vince Gill, James Brown, Joan Armatrading, Al Green, LeAnn Rimes, Joe Cocker, Randy Newman, and Oliva Newton-John are just a few of the folks who find their summer touring schedules leading them to the LBC. 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. 707-546-3600. www.lbc.net.

Napa Valley Opera House

In store this summer: period instrument ensemble Musica Pacifica, Latin jazz flutist John Calloway, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and samba band Katia Morales and Sambaguru. The innovative “American bossa nova” group Brazzaville in particular looks inviting in the Opera House’s diverse summer season. 1030 Main St., Napa. 707.226.7372. www.napavalleyoperahouse.org.

Head Shrinkers: Big Head Todd and the Monsters rock Konocti on June 6.

Konocti Field Amphitheater

The workhorse music acts all come out for the big summer touring season: Hootie and the Blowfish, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, the Beach Boys, the Moody Blues, Pat Benatar, Weird Al, Melissa Etheridge, Loretta Lynn, Boston, Bob Dylan, Steely Dan, and a host of typical rock dinosaur acts (Hall and Oates, Chicago–you get the picture) will rally by the lake. 8727 Soda Bay Road, Kelseyville. 800.660.LAKE. konoctiharbor.com.

Windsor Summer Nights on the Green

Oh, the merry nights in Windsor! The second and fourth Thursdays of every month, turn out from 5-8pm for live music, a farmers market, and barbecue. Windsor Town Green, 9291 Old Redwood Hwy. Free. 707.838.5382. www.ci.windsor.ca.us.

Napa County Landmarks Walking Tours

Join Napa County Landmarks’ 90-minute walking tours on Saturday mornings throughout the summer for the inside stories on Napa Valley buildings, cemeteries, and houses. No advance reservations needed, just show up on time at the designated location. Starting locations vary. $7 general; $2 children five to 12. 707.255.1836. www.napacountylandmarks.org

Art in the Park

Relax to the sounds of live music in Juilliard Park as local eateries prepare food samples. Alt-rockers Five AM, jazzy combo Realistic, and rock vocalist Jessie Turner make up some of the entertainment. Sunday evenings, 4:30-7pm, July 13-Aug. 17. 227 Santa Rosa Ave. Free.

Healdsburg Music on the Square

Get your fill of pop, R&B, flamenco, zydeco, oldies, and mariachi with Healdsburg’s free music series. Also catch Art in the Plaza on June 29 and Aug. 17. Sunday afternoons, June 1-Aug. 24. Free. www.healdsburgarts.org.

Summer Repertory Theatre

Santa Rosa Junior College’s industrious summer drama company delivers the goods with The Music Man, the powerful one-woman show Wit, the stock market farce The Solid Gold Cadillac, love story/mystery Arcadia, The Rocky Horror Show, and the screwball theater comedy Moon Over Buffalo. Stay outfitted in live theater from June to August. Burbank Auditorium, SRJC, 1501 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. 707.527.4343. www.santarosa.edu/srt.

Concerts at COPIA

Fill your Mondays with music at COPIA’s River Concert Terrace. Among the 12 concerts scheduled are Le Hot Jazz (June 9), Ron Thompson and the Resisters (June 16), Dan Hicks and his Side Kicks (July 7), West African Highlife Band (July 21), and the Earl Brothers (Aug. 25). Bring a blanket, buy some snacks, and settle in under the stars. Concerts begin at 8pm. 500 First St., Napa. 707.259.1600. www.copia.org.

Film Night in the Park

An outdoor summer film festival that embraces the spirit of drive-ins, Film Night in the Park offers a selection of movies for the whole family. This year’s theme pays tribute to those familiar faces with unfamiliar names: character actors. There are two Tim Burton movies, two Beatles movies, seven animated movies, and one Clint Eastwood flick, plus many more. June 28-Oct. 4. Movies begin at dusk (around 8pm). Locations throughout Marin County. $5. 415.453.4333. www.filmnight.org.

Marin Poetry Center Summer Tour

Poetry hits the road as the Marin Poetry Center sponsors readings for its member poets at venues all over Marin. Over 80 readers will appear at one of 17 different readings in bookstores, libraries and art galleries–even at the Marin County Fair. June 17, 22, and 24; July 3, 8, 15, 22, and 29; Aug. 5, 12, 19, 22, and 26; and Sept. 9, 16, 23, and 30. Various Marin County locations. 415.382.8022. www.marinpoetrycenter.com.

Rodney Strong Vineyards Summer Concert Series

Smooth jazz in the sun. Acoustic Alchemy (June 21), Richard Elliot, Peter White, Steve Cole, and Jeff Golub (Aug. 3), Rick Braun (Aug. 17), and Boney James (Sept. 14) headline a series of picnic-worthy concerts. $30-$35 per show. 11455 Old Redwood Hwy., Healdsburg. 707.433.0939. www.rodneystrong.com.

Marin Shakespeare Company

The Merry Wives of Windsor gets updated to a psychedelic ’70s setting (July 11-Aug. 17), Moliere’s Don Juan rejects the conventions of love (July 18-Aug. 17), and former Pickle Circus and Cirque du Soleil star Diane Wasnak reprises her role as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Aug. 29-Sept. 27). Forest Meadows Amphitheater, Dominican University, San Rafael. $15-$25. 415.499.4488. www.marinshakespeare.org.

Napa Valley Shakespeare Festival

Romeo and Juliet (July 18-Aug. 3) starts off the festival’s 10th anniversary season, which then shifts gears for The Tempest (Aug. 15-30). Riverbend Plaza, Napa Mill, 500 Main St., Napa. $18-$24 general. 707.251.WILL.

The Mountain Play’s ‘Annie’

“The Bay Area’s highest theatrical experience” celebrates its 90th year of delivering quality theater in an amazing outdoor setting. This season, Annie scales Mt. Tam for a May-June run. May 25 and June 1, 7, 8, and 15. All shows at 1pm. 415.383.1100. www.mountainplay.org.

From the May 22-28, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Sonoma County Herb Exchange

-
0
Sonoma County Herb Exchange

Photograph by Michael Amsler

Voodoo Economics: Leslie Gardner, with a basket of fresh chamomile, spearmint, and skullcap, hopes to raise money for the herb exchange at the upcoming benefit.

Symbiotic Relationship

The Sonoma County Herb Exchange brings growers and practitioners together

By Davina Baum

Leslie Gardner doesn’t want to use the word “voodoo” to describe the magical qualities of herbs, but she’s tempted. Obviously, any suggestion that the use of medicinal herbs dips into black magic isn’t something she’d like to promote. After all, she’s been working with growers and practicing herbalists for years, and to her it’s nothing if not mainstream.

Gardner is the director and coordinator of the Sonoma County Herb Exchange, and it’s her job to bring the various medicine makers, practitioners, and “kitchen witches” (the women in their kitchens making their own herbal remedies for family and friends) together with the herb growers. The exchange’s catalog lists about 100 fresh herbs, from agrimony to yerba santa. There’s also a selection of dry herbs and infused oils on the list–a panoply of medicinals primed for tinctures, extracts, aromatherapy, or perhaps just a good cup of tea.

But talking about that voodoo thing, that’s where her bright green eyes sparkle. Call it magic, call it spiritualism, Gardner believes the herbs have something about them–“that juicy quality of the unknown,” she says–that draws people to them.

“They’re such amazing plants,” she says. “Compared to vegetables, which are so domesticated, herbs are kind of woo-woo–they have a magic.”

Jokes about her last name notwithstanding, Gardner has not always been, well, a gardener. She’s been in charge of the gardens at the California School of Herbal Studies in Forestville since 1991, but prior to that she was a practicing nutritionist and herbalist, with a masters in herbology. “Over time I found myself more and more drawn to the garden and away from clinical herbalism,” she says.

The Herb Exchange is a project of the Sonoma County Herb Association, the umbrella group that puts on the annual herb festival at Santa Rosa Junior College. The exchange is about three years old now and grew “organically,” Gardner says, “from various members of the community.”

Gardner points out that Sonoma County is an amazing growing area, and “because of the herb school, which was founded in 1979, we’ve had so many herbal branches grown out from that–whether it was Rosemary’s Garden, or whether it was all the various herbalists who have begun to practice in the area, or people growing herbs.”

As the Sonoma County Herb Association began to coalesce in 1997 and 1998, “we began to realize that we should be growing our herbs here,” says Gardner. She started sending out a newsletter to herbal practitioners, listing local growers and what they were selling, so that they could get hold of fresh medicinal plants. The conversations continued, and it became clear that everyone wanted a central location, “to enable people to come to one spot.

“That’s what did the trick,” adds Gardner. They got set up as a nonprofit, found grant money to create the infrastructure, and rented land from Laguna Farm in Sebastopol (coincidentally, or not, Gardner is married to Laguna Farm’s Scott Mathieson), where they were offered the best piece of land and the best rent. They use two buildings on the farm: a small office and a barn that serves as the storefront.

The initial setup was great, says Gardner. They had an administrator, and they were able to do mail order and delivery within an hour’s time. But once the grant money was used up, the operation was forced to contract, and the mail order and delivery business got shelved.

With no money to pay staff, Gardner turned to the growers for help. “The exciting thing,” she says, “was that they all said let’s morph into a grower co-op, and we’ve been able to do everything by volunteer labor.” They make enough money to pay the rent and pay Gardner a small salary, and all the other tasks are rotated through by volunteers. “It’s not as efficient as having a staff,” she says, “but [everything] is kind of getting done.”

As a result of losing the mail-order and delivery business, the herb exchange has remained a local presence, “for better or worse,” notes Gardner. “The local folks are thrilled.”

Now the herb exchange deals with about 16 to 18 farms, from backyard growers to small farms, all organically grown (though not all are certified organic). The exchange operates in two realms: retail sales and preorder arrangements. Practitioners and medicine makers can make orders (the catalog is available online) by Wednesday, then pick up their plants at the exchange on the following Tuesday. Growers drop off the preordered herbs in the morning, and the buyers pick up in the afternoon, so everything is fresh.

Over half of the exchange’s business, though, is conducted via contractual arrangement with medicine makers like Forestville-based Simplers Botanical Company. The companies preorder a certain amount of a medicinal herb, deliverable when it’s ready. “This is the greatest thing for the growers,” Gardner says, “because they know how much they’re going to sell, how much they’re going to get per pound, and they know they can harvest it when it’s at its optimal point, medicinally.”

This method also promotes sustainable business practices. Rather than forcing growers to wait for the retail orders to dribble in, they get a sure thing. A few of the growers have been able to make a living off what they sell through the exchange.

Another issue that’s come up, says Gardner, is biodiversity. She notes that the influx of grape growing has been “wonderful” for the county, because it’s helped to keep Sonoma agricultural. But monocropping and its concomitant issues–betting the farm, basically, on one crop–is a serious problem that the exchange hopes to alleviate, or at least educate about, through outreach.

Two wineries, Davis Bynum and Topolos, both of which are committed to preserving biodiversity, have been open to the idea of intercropping or growing medicinal herbs as cover crops. The goal, Gardner says, is “to be able to pull in grape growers and help them to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.”

While some plants are being pushed into oblivion by monocropping, others are being overharvested. Ginseng and goldenseal are two hugely popular plants that are in short supply. Gardner is working on cultivating goldenseal here, though she says that it is one of the few plants that doesn’t like this climate. Wildcrafting–gathering herbs from the wild rather than cultivating them–is a “time-honored herbal tradition,” she says, but it has also contributed to the near extinction of plants like ginseng.

Responsible wildcrafting, though, is encouraged, especially for plants like Saint John’s wort, which is on the USDA’s list of noxious herbs (it’s considered an invasive weed), so it can’t be cultivated.

But back to the magic of herbs. “All of us got into this somehow because of that magic,” says Gardner. “It’s an act of empowerment to grow your own herbs.” She says that when people ask her what herbs will be good crops or what will make money for a grower, her answer is often “Put some things in that you’re drawn to.” She believes that growers will find which plants grow well for them.

The greatest interest, recently, has been in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicinal herbs. “It’s an exploding field,” Gardner says. She admits, though, that the herb exchange is an insulated group in some ways, “because we’re just providing the herbs, and they [practitioners and herbalists] do the education out in the community. . . . Some of our best educators are people who work in the supplements departments of the stores. Those are the folks who interface with the public.”

The exchange hopes to offer workshops at some point, to get out into the public, but at the moment members are just hoping to be able to pay the volunteers–that, she says, is what the benefit is for.

The Sonoma County Herb Association benefit for the Herb Exchange is June 7, 10am-4pm at the Sebastopol Town Plaza. 707.824.1447. www.sonomaherbs.org.

From the May 22-28, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Jaco Pastorius

-
0
Jaco Pastorius

Bassmaster: Jazz-fusion bassist Jaco Pastorius left a stunning legacy.

A Bass Odyssey

Jaco Pastorius tops list of new fusion CDs

By Greg Cahill

The release of bass player Jaco Pastorius’ eponymous 1976 Epic debut “was like a thunderbolt from the gods,” former DJ Ricky Schultz declares in the liner notes of Punk Jazz: The Jaco Pastorius Anthology (Warner Brothers/Rhino), the newly released two-CD collection that for the first time brings together rarities, live tracks, and material recorded for several different labels by the late, great musician.

“Seriously–for anyone who was paying attention–within a few seconds of dropping the needle . . . on ‘Donna Lee,’ it was apparent that something big was happening,” writes Schultz. “Never heard the bass played like this, never heard the bass sound like this, and I’d never heard such a hip, modern interpretation of Charlie Parker like this before. The album was a revelation.”

As it turns out, a lot of folks noticed this remarkable bassist, arranger, and composer. And Pastorius, who didn’t take up the bass until age 17, enjoyed a meteoric rise at the peak of the jazz-fusion era three decades ago. His life proved short lived and tragic, however. By 1980, Pastorius began showing signs of mental illness and his career was in ruins. He became mired in substance abuse, was unable to complete recording projects, and ended up living on the streets. In 1987, back on his home turf in southern Florida, he was beaten to death by an angry nightclub bouncer.

The new anthology is a testament to Pastorius’ brilliance and is the brightest of several new CDs and reissues from the cream of the fusion-era bassists.

The 28 tracks on Punk Jazz range from a rare 1968 home demo of the Pee Wee Ellis funk song “The Chicken” to “Good Morning Anya,” from Pastorius’ never-completed 1981 solo album Holiday for Pans. In addition, there are tracks Pastorius recorded with Weather Report, Pat Metheny, Joni Mitchell, and others as well as tracks from his own solo and big-band projects.

At his best, Pastorius had a distinctive voice and a lyrical style perfectly suited for his fretless electric bass. “His grooves were transcendent and contagious,” jazz critic Bill Milkowski has noted, “combining the funk of Wilson Pickett at his most wicked with the seductive swagger of Sinatra belting ‘Come Fly with Me’ over the jaunty roar of the Count Basie Orchestra.”

Of course, fans may quibble over the anthology’s selections–and omissions–but this is a comprehensive tribute to one of the most creative figures of a much-maligned musical era.

Meanwhile, bassist Stanley Clarke is back with 1, 2, to the Bass (Epic). While Pastorius was shaking things up in Weather Report, Clarke rose to fame as Return to Forever’s young fast gun. He later released a couple of noteworthy solo albums (1976’s School Days being the best).

But Clarke–who performs at the Russian River Jazz Festival on Labor Day weekend–was never comfortable with his Promethean talent and soon settled into a series of ho-hum pop-jazz releases geared toward the vapid “quiet storm” radio market. Of late, he appears to be coming to terms with his gift and flirting with a return to the spotlight. But it’s a half-hearted return at best.

1, 2, to the Bass starts out promising enough with the hip-hop title track that features Clarke on tenor bass and rapper Q-Tip (Kamaal Fareed) delivering a spoken-word declaration of purpose about life and art. Later there is a nod to Larry Graham, the Sly and the Family Stone bassist who developed the thumb-slapping, finger-popping style that has dominated pop, funk, and rock bass for the past 30 years. Then it’s mostly nap time with just an occasional flash of the old brilliance (not even guest Joe Satriani can incite Clarke to rock). The highlight of the disc is “Touch,” an energetic live track recorded at Yoshi’s nightclub and exhibiting all the fire of the Return to Forever days.

There may be hope yet.

To get a taste of Larry Graham’s influence on Clarke and others–and you owe it to yourself to buy the newly remastered two-CD set The Essential Sly and the Family Stone (Epic/Legacy)–check out The Ozell Tapes: Marcus Miller Live, the Official Bootleg (Telarc). Probably no modern bassist has benefited from Graham, Clarke, and Pastorius’ groundbreaking techniques as much as Miller, the in-demand session player and former Miles Davis sideman (Tutu and Music from Siesta). While much of Miller’s recorded work is marred by slick studio production and limited originality (he cribs liberally from his predecessors), this follow-up to his Grammy-winning 2002 album M2 captures a grittier road warrior on two CDs of solid funk and jazz grooves.

Harder to find, but well worth the search, are seven new reissues on the Bardo label of 1990s material from the underrated Swedish bassist Jonas Hellborg, whose credits include PiL’s 1986 hard-rock classic Album, as well as fusion projects with John McLaughlin, Bill Laswell, and Ginger Baker. Originality and musicality abound here. A good starting place is 1999’s Aram of the Two Rivers, a reflective album recorded live in Syria with Middle Eastern players.

From the May 22-28, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Camping Food

-
0
Camping Food

Let the Camp Stove Set You Free: Camping season doesn’t have to mean lukewarm canned stew and lumpy oatmeal.

Fire and Ice

Car camping on less than a $1,000 a week

By Gretchen Giles

Like the weird machinations of the sex act, car camping sounds like a fool’s joke if described in its particulars. Shouldn’t your inner child scowl in grossed-out disbelief at the suggestion that it would be hecka fun to take all of the most important life elements from your home, pack them all up, drive them far away, arrive at a hardscrabble dirt pack known as Site 8, and then unload and unpack all of those elements just so that you can live almost like you do at home–but outside with the bugs and bats and snakes instead?

Sheesh. That fool’s joke is even less humorous when you consider what people used to eat when camping. Rather than the yummy, lovely stuff harbored by garden, fridge, and stove, camping often featured entire main courses composed of little more than that canned stew Fido keeps mistaking for his own. Endless tins of condensed milk were upended into bitter cups of coffee, and–to eavesdrop on the reminiscences of some Australian campers conversing over an online discussion thread–were drunk directly from the can by sneaky sweet-toothed children.

That oblong block of cheese-food, Velveeta, which needn’t ever be chilled for reasons too terrible to contemplate, figured largely in healthy outdoor meals of yesteryear. Fruit came as a cocktail, packed in another great liquid for straight-out-of-the-can drinking. And then of course, there’s that one word: beans.

Certainly, the advent of the icky freeze-dried meal lightened everyone’s load but didn’t tantalize too many taste buds. Even today, researching freeze-dried camping foods is like tip-toeing through the moldy pages of an old cookbook, except that you merely add water to the stuff, the cream of mushroom soup and pineapple bits having been thoroughly powdered by science. Chicken à la king, beef Stroganoff, turkey tetrazzini, sweet ‘n’ sour pork, and those curious astronaut flakes of ice-cream-in-a-bag are priced for the 21st century, but they don’t reflect what we want to eat in it.

Backpackers may relish a nice bag of Polynesian chicken after hiking in a few miles to a campsite, but those who limit their camping needs to the space of a car trunk can savor the concept of coolers and ice. That angry, baleful woman known as Grandma used to have to either pack all the family’s food in cans or enjoy a lovely vacation of hauling creek water in canvas bags to keep fresh things cool.

But–hooray!–Grandma looks a lot happier, and that’s not just because she now chooses cruises over camping. Join her in giving a hand to the good people collected under the Igloo brand for helping advance the art of outdoor food several generations forward with the preservation of ice.

A good cooler will keep that block of party ice partying for as much as four days, and the smart car camper who has frozen many things in advance can add perhaps an entire extra day to the chill, meaning that once you’ve hit the great outdoors, you can stay there. In his novel The Mosquito Coast, author Paul Theroux asserts that ice is the single item connoting the successful establishment of a firmly held civilization. Taking this supposition seriously, the well-planned outdoorsperson can reasonably assume Site 8 to be tantamount to the golden age of Greece, at least until next Tuesday, when the Romans arrive in the form of a soupy muck of melted water sloshing around the cooler’s interior.

Indeed, this may be the golden age of car camping, given that ice and SUVs have joined fire and Gore-Tex in commonplace availability. No longer is it necessary–or even, it may be argued, legal–to prepare such outdoor treats still shuddering in digital shame for all to see on the Internet as “Coca-Cola chicken.” (1 whole cut up chicken. 1 can Coke. 1 full bottle ketchup. Potatoes and carrots. Put chicken in a Dutch oven, pour Coke and ketchup atop, and add vegetables. Cover and cook over the fire for an hour.)

A little preparation is all it takes to hold the line between whipping up a pot of fresh pesto on the camp stove and finding oneself near dinnertime with a chicken, a Coke, and some ketchup, thinking, “Hey! I’ve got an idea!”

The guaranteed method to securing a free and unfettered al fresco gourmet romp is to work like hell indoors getting ready for it. Like Santa, lists must be compiled and checked twice. Unlike Santa, you are allowed the pleasure of putting down tasks completed earlier and then lining them satisfyingly through. Froze a meat sauce six months ago? Great. It’s gonna travel. Mark it down and cross it out.

Questions must be asked, deep and searing inquiries, such as: Exactly which utensil, pot, pan, seasoning, and ingredient does each dish require, and can it be fudged or premade? How much wine do two people honestly need for five days? And, most importantly, if it’s good for dinner, will the odd portions of it left over be good for lunch?

Those who ordinarily graze lightly at lunch or don’t eat it at all may be surprised at the large role lunch plays in camping. Fighting the tent, bounding through poison oak, hiking, stumbling, swimming, panting, and biking tend to leave one hungry. Lunch is a good thing, even better if Gruyère cheese, avocados, and ripe tomatoes find a way to marry on artisan bread with pickled red onion slices. (Put 1 thinly sliced red onion, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 garlic clove, some peppercorns, and 1 bay leaf in a bowl. Pour boiling water over and let sit. When cool, remove all but the onion and keep refrigerated.)

Meats to be grilled can be marinated, triple-secured in Zip lock bags, and set to rest for days in the cooler after thorough refrigeration. Pesto sauce can be made at home and frozen in advance. Save some of it to flavor a cream sauce later with egg noodles and leftover grilled chicken.

Boil potatoes and eggs first and pack for impromptu potato salad, illicit fried-potato breakfasts, deviled eggs with capers, hardy eggs on the trail, or egg salad sandwiches. Bacon, needless to say, may be consumed in enormous quantities. Ancient tales told round the campfire reveal that it has no ill effects at all if eaten out of doors.

Curiously, items normally shunned by the assiduous home cook become well nigh saintly when camping. Bagged caesar salad suddenly seems a miraculous invention, as do those ordinarily nasty wooden “baby” carrots. Boxed rices carry leftover bits from previous dinners proudly forward to brave new meals. Biscuits in a can, one marvels, just travel so tidily.

Indeed, bread is the trickiest element of preparing to camp, particularly to those so spoiled by the yeasty abundance of our area. Other than learning to delight in the stale, suggestions are to snap up that insanely caloric treat known as “Monterey Jack and Swiss Cheese Loaf” sold by Trader Joe’s for foil-wrapping in the fire–it lets you know when it goes bad through a colorful change in hue–and to rely on crackers after day four.

As for dessert, s’mores are fine as long as you don’t have children. Even that puppyish three-year-old will suddenly possess an uncanny ability to measure minute fractional amounts, dissolving into outraged tears when the Grahams and Hershey squares have inevitably crumbled unfairly. Furthermore, hot marshmallows have been proven to suffer from a greater gravitational pull than any object other than the Earth herself and invariably aim for the dirt. Sticky, weeping, and filth-stained are not happy camping bywords, particularly at bedtime.

Brownies–now there’s a hallelujah! Having pushed cake mixes successfully to the floor of the grocery aisle, brownies are evidently our hot, hot, hot new after-dinner love interest, but the commercial ones taste like dark, gummy dust. Baker’s brand unsweetened chocolate boxes are printed with a super-easy recipe for homemade brownies that take less than five minutes to prepare for the oven. And if you’ve made them yourself, you can be assured that those two full cups of sugar will preserve anything, the squares eventually attaining a stately fossilization that’s really not too bad when accompanied by a bottle of port.

As you sit under the stars on the hardscrabble pack of Site 8, sipping the raisiny nectar of the fine land of Portugal from a plastic cup and gumming a week-old brownie, you might shrug that, sure, staring the bald facts of car camping in the face ain’t pretty. But as with other ungainly machinations, it sure is nice.

From the May 22-28, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Villa Incognito’

-
0
‘Villa Incognito’

‘Villa Incognito’ by Tom Robbins.

Meet Me in Cognito: That trademark Robbinsian flair and flamboyance is on parade in his new novel.

Too Much Robbins

‘Villa Incognito’ out-Robbins Tom Robbins

By Jordan E. Rosenfeld

In the cult of Tom Robbins, it seems there are two main sects of readers: Those who adore him despite his often absurd literary gyrations and those who think him a verbose show-off.

I admit that, just like the adoring hordes who crowd his readings, I am drawn to Tom Robbins by a force I can’t fully comprehend. Robbins manages to wrap surprising slices of truth inside tightly wrought plots. At the end of a Robbins book, it’s easy to feel like one has received a special spiritual care package with that unique Robbins recipe for making us wiser, kinder, and more thoughtful about the big mysteries of life.

Villa Incognito (Bantam, $27.50), Robbins’ newest effort, is indeed rife with the expected themes: the government’s blatant misuse of power, the taboo yet compelling allure of young women, and the draw of enlightenment above all other temptations. It would have been a surprise to find anything but the same gurulike figures spewing whimsical advice, having great sex, and living comfortably off the grid. Despite being very well prepared, I commenced to plunge in, as they say in AA, “doing the same thing expecting different results.” And plunge in one must, for there is no gentle way to enter Villa Incognito.

From its very first paragraph Robbins seems to dare the reader to keep reading. “It has been reported that Tanuki fell from the sky using his scrotum as a parachute,” taunts the first line. The successive few sentences proceed to describe Tanuki’s scrotum in four or five too many ways. Does Robbins then reward further page-turning with the luscious prose morsels and exultant witticisms that we Tom Robbins lovers jones for? Not exactly.

It’s difficult to be charmed by a talking, bawdy badger. Or more specifically, a tanuki–a real badgerlike animal found mainly in Asia–who loves sake, seduces young women, and is to Japanese mythology what Coyote is to Native Americans, the quintessential hedonistic trickster. If not for the fact that Robbins delightfully braids mythology and philosophy, invoking Joseph Campbell and Lao Tzu on LSD, I would not have made it past page three.

While many a novel suffers the sin of lack of plot, Villa Incognito has more than its fair share. It is the story of three American MIAs who chose to stay missing after the Vietnam War. They have taken up producing opium for centers that help the sick die peacefully. It is also the story of four generations of women tied together by a quirky woodland creature, a traveling circus, and a mystical chrysanthemum seed.

Or is it? As if in homage to the Zen Buddhism Robbins so clearly respects (evidenced by the numerous references throughout), Villa Incognito is like a Zen koan, the incomprehensible sound of one hand; it makes you think a little too hard.

A Robbins novel always has a kernel around which its unique metaverse is built. In this case, it is the above-mentioned chrysanthemum seed passed down from the female offspring
of the first unlikely tanuki-human pairing. Unlike in his other masterpieces such as Jitterbug Perfume, Robbins does not here take the seed motif to a satisfying conclusion; rather, he darts into a fog of metaphor from which it is difficult for a reader to emerge.

From the chilly streets of Seattle to the steamy chaos of Laos and Thailand, the hodge-podge of characters cross continents, pontificate about the big subjects, and laud the benefits of the opium poppy. While there are enough creative turns of phrase to garner a laugh and a blush here and there, plus a masterful play on the nature of illusion versus reality, eventually it grows tiresome that all characters speak in the same erudite psychobabble. “A real villain is always preferable to a fake hero,” says one character. “What you’re seeing is pinpoint focus combined with mad abandon in such a way as to cause the specters of death and the exaltations of life to collide . . . ,” says another.

The best thing about the book might just be the original song, with lyrics like “Meet me in Cognito, baby / Of course we’ll have to color our hair / The best thing about life in Cognito / is that everybody’s nobody there.”

Ultimately, while the book does deliver plenty of luminous wisdom and wit, Villa Incognito is best reserved for us hopeless Robbins fanatics. Because once you get hooked on him, you might not be able to stop, even when that would be wise.

Tom Robbins reads at Montgomery Village Copperfield’s Books on May 21 at 7pm. 2316 Montgomery Dr., Santa Rosa. 707.578.8938

From the May 15-21, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

John Hammond

-
0
John Hammond

‘Wicked Grin’ (2001)

‘Ready for Love’ (2003)

Cruisin’: John Hammond is on a blue streak.

Blues Notes

John Hammond is ‘Ready for Love’

By Greg Cahill

It seemed like an odd fit at first. A dozen of the 13 tracks on Grammy-winning bluesman John Hammond’s 2001 album Wicked Grin were penned by the eccentric Beat songster Tom Waits, some of Waits’ band members played on the sessions, and the elusive Waits even popped up with guitar work, errant hand claps, and his trademark growl.

Oh yeah, and Waits, a Two Rock-area resident, supervised the sessions at one of his favorite haunts, Prairie Sun Studio in Cotati.

That made the dark-hued Wicked Grin a Tom Waits tribute, produced by Tom Waits, and featuring Tom Waits. That was a lot of Tom Waits from a guy who’s notoriously, uh, reclusive.

Waits fans loved it. And Hammond found himself attracting a lot of newfound attention. The record–dripping in soul-wrenching Delta-style blues, gospel, and country influences–drew rave reviews from unexpected quarters (though maybe it makes perfect sense that the Wall Street Journal‘s writers are recent converts to the blues) and earned Hammond a coveted W. C. Handy Blues Award for Acoustic Album of the Year.

Now Hammond–who performs May 22 at the Mystic Theatre–is back with Ready for Love, the potent follow-up to Wicked Grin and an album that underscores just how much the association with Waits helped revitalize Hammond’s singing and playing.

“I don’t feel like I have to prove anything, but I’ve got this new sense of freedom,” he has said of the new album. “The experience with Tom Waits opened me up tremendously.”

Ready for Love, Hammond’s 29th album in a career that stretches back 40 years, features 13 ruminations on romance in all its glorious and less-than-glorious shades–12 covers (including two Waits songs) and Hammond’s first-ever recorded original (“Slick Crown Vic,” an ode to cruisin’ for chicks in his 1955 Crown Victoria). The album, produced by David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, receives a swampy roots-music treatment that takes the listener on a moonlit ride through the South and Southwest.

Part of the charm of Ready for Love is that Hammond recorded it with his touring band, the first he’s assembled since 1970. That talent-laden road band features Texas organ legend Augie Meyers (Texas Tornados, Bob Dylan, Sir Douglas Quintet) and drummer Stephen Hodges (Fabulous Thunderbirds), augmented by guitarist Frank Carillo and bassist Marty Ballou. Soozie Tyrell of the E Street Band also contributes backup vocals and fiddle.

The combo’s chemistry and chops allowed Hammond to stretch out his already considerable interpretive skills, putting his stamp on songs by Hidalgo (“I Brought the Rain”), Waits (“Gin Soaked Boy” and “Low Side of the Road”), Willie Dixon ( “Same Thing”), George Jones (“Color of the Blues” and “Just One More”), and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (“Spider and the Fly”). Hammond also delves into the mid-tempo torch song “Comes Love,” made popular by Billie Holiday, and “Money Honey,” a longtime Elvis Presley favorite (first recorded by the Larks).

For those who only recently learned of Hammond through Wicked Grin, the new album demonstrates just how deep Hammond’s roots lie. As Waits himself told Rolling Stone: “John knows such a rich pageantry of American music. My songs . . . [are] just a smidgen of what he knows.”

The John Hammond Band perform Thursday, May 22, at 8pm at the Mystic Theatre, 21 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. Roots rocker Jeffrey Halford and the Healers also appear. Tickets are $23. 707.765.2121.

Spin Du Jour

When You Were Near (Solid as a Rock) started out as a nod to a beloved colleague, but ended up as a showcase for the great talent that performs in North Bay clubs. The 16-track CD, produced by Sonoma County bassist Evan Palmerston (formerly of the Elvin Bishop Band), is a tribute to the late Ralph Bryan, a local guitarist who died last year of brain cancer at 54.

Bryan left behind a 13-year-old daughter, Elena, and lots of friends who had thrown a benefit concert to help offset the family’s medical bills. Palmerston, who lost his mother to cancer in 1974, enlisted some of those same musicians to contribute tracks to this fundraising CD. The proceeds go toward a trust for Elena’s education.

The disc, which kicks off with Palmerston’s heart-rending bass solo of Curtis Mayfield gospel song “People Get Ready,” runs the gamut from “Way Too Fast” (featuring longtime Van Morrison sideman John Allair of Petaluma) and “Pool Fool” (with slide guitarist extraordinaire Ron Thompson and pianist Mark Naftalin of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) to “I Don’t Know Why” (a finely crafted slice of Beatlesque pop by Danny Sorentino) and “Gimme a Break” (a groove-laden soul-jazz number by Michael Barclay).

Bryan himself can be heard on several tracks, including the roots rocker “Baby You’re Gone Now.” Elena Bryan penned the remembrance that closes the disc. Sadly, guitarist Bill Ganaye of the Cool Tones (the first person to step forward with a tribute track), died of a heart attack at age 50 shortly before the album’s release. When You Were Near is available at local record stores.

–G.C.

From the May 15-21, 2003 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Abbey Lincoln

The world according to jazz diva Abbey LincolnBy Greg CahillAbbey Lincoln doesn't like small talk. Sometimes ornery, often wistful, the 74-year-old jazz singer shoots strait from the hip during a phone interview from her Manhattan apartment. "I never thought I'd see these days, but I don't imagine anybody else did either," says Lincoln, commenting on what she sees as...
Read more

Tubby’s Restaurant and North Light Books

Shopping Center Cuisine in CotatiBy Sara BirThere is no such thing as a quaint or charming shopping center. There just isn't. With their vast, cracked-asphalt parking lots and traffic-jam-instigating accessibility, shopping centers may play host to errand running, but they are very rarely pleasure destinations. Still, as shopping centers go, Rancho Cotati is a model of the genre. All...
Read more

Healdsburg Community Band

Community bands are back--and they're bigger than ever A soft rain has begun to fall over the town of Healdsburg this evening, but inside the band room of Healdsburg High School, it is dry and cozy and warm. A bit too warm. The collected members of the Healdsburg Community Band have just run through a half-dozen rousing tunes--including "Circus...
Read more

‘Under Pressure’

Star Power: Sol LeWitt's stars are a little bit Moorish, a little bit rock and roll.Paper TrailsSMOVA's traveling 'Under Pressure' exhibit makes its markBy Gretchen GilesPrintmaker David Lasry is an inveterate collaborator, even partnering up with artists without their knowledge. Owner of New York's Two Palms Press, Lasry is concerned with drawing out the print potentials of those who...
Read more

Summer Guide 2003

Love and Affection: Bittersweet and earnest Joan Armatrading performs at the Luther Burbank Center on June 24.Hot Fun in the SummertimeThe North Bay offers more summer events than you can shake a popsicle stick atBy Sara BirJazz festivals, blues festivals, accordion festivals, film festivals, food festivals, wine festivals, beer festivals, health and harmony festivals, art festivals, family festivals. Oh,...
Read more

Sonoma County Herb Exchange

Photograph by Michael AmslerVoodoo Economics: Leslie Gardner, with a basket of fresh chamomile, spearmint, and skullcap, hopes to raise money for the herb exchange at the upcoming benefit.Symbiotic RelationshipThe Sonoma County Herb Exchange brings growers and practitioners togetherBy Davina BaumLeslie Gardner doesn't want to use the word "voodoo" to describe the magical qualities of herbs, but she's tempted. Obviously,...
Read more

Jaco Pastorius

Bassmaster: Jazz-fusion bassist Jaco Pastorius left a stunning legacy.A Bass OdysseyJaco Pastorius tops list of new fusion CDsBy Greg CahillThe release of bass player Jaco Pastorius' eponymous 1976 Epic debut "was like a thunderbolt from the gods," former DJ Ricky Schultz declares in the liner notes of Punk Jazz: The Jaco Pastorius Anthology (Warner Brothers/Rhino), the newly released two-CD...
Read more

Camping Food

Let the Camp Stove Set You Free: Camping season doesn't have to mean lukewarm canned stew and lumpy oatmeal.Fire and IceCar camping on less than a $1,000 a weekBy Gretchen GilesLike the weird machinations of the sex act, car camping sounds like a fool's joke if described in its particulars. Shouldn't your inner child scowl in grossed-out disbelief at...
Read more

‘Villa Incognito’

'Villa Incognito' by Tom Robbins.Meet Me in Cognito: That trademark Robbinsian flair and flamboyance is on parade in his new novel.Too Much Robbins'Villa Incognito' out-Robbins Tom RobbinsBy Jordan E. RosenfeldIn the cult of Tom Robbins, it seems there are two main sects of readers: Those who adore him despite his often absurd literary gyrations and those who think him...
Read more

John Hammond

'Wicked Grin' (2001)'Ready for Love' (2003)Cruisin': John Hammond is on a blue streak.Blues NotesJohn Hammond is 'Ready for Love'By Greg CahillIt seemed like an odd fit at first. A dozen of the 13 tracks on Grammy-winning bluesman John Hammond's 2001 album Wicked Grin were penned by the eccentric Beat songster Tom Waits, some of Waits' band members played on...
Read more
1...9989991,000Page 1,889 of 1,000
11,084FansLike
4,606FollowersFollow
6,928FollowersFollow
north bay bohemian newspaper sonoma napa county logo
CURRENT ISSUE & ARCHIVES
East Bay Express cover
East Bay Express cover
CURRENT ISSUE & ARCHIVES
Newsletters Subscribe Advertise About Us Contact Us Letter to the Editor Press Release Obituaries Writing an Obituary Archives Find a Paper Distribute Bohemian Vote for Best Of Plaques & Banners
win free stuff
Features Local News News
Arts Books & Literature Crush Culture Movies Music Spotlight Theater
Astrology Look Media Opinion Letters To The Editor Open Mic Press Pass Rolling Papers
Dining Restaurants Small Bites
Readers' Picks 2025 Arts & Culture Beer, Wine & Spirits Beauty, Health & Wellness Cannabis Everyday Services Family & Pets Home Improvement Recreation Restaurants Romance Shopping
All Upcoming Events Today's Events Submit an Event Promote Your Event
weeklys california local media group logo

FOLLOW US

Copyright © Weeklys All rights reserved.

Our Publications

ADVERTISING Advertise Legal Submit an Obituary Legal NoticesFictitious Business Name (FBN) StatementsDoing Business As (DBA) NoticesTrustee Sale Notices

COMPANY INFO Job Opportunities Journalism Awards Privacy Policy Terms of Service

Support Local Journalism