Last week, coming home from a conference in Northern California, I detoured through the historic town of Sonoma, deep in the wine country. The town’s center is a beautiful Spanish colonial plaza surrounded by historic clapboard, brick and adobe buildings, including the northernmost of California’s missions, Mission San Francisco Solano. The town served briefly as the capital of the short-lived Republic of California prior to the discovery of gold and subsequent absorption into the United States. Every spring the town hosts Sonoma Jazz+; visitors can spend the afternoons sipping wine, strolling around the plaza, and listening to bands in different venues.
[Read more →]
Tags: The state of music by Jon O
No Comments »
Washington continues to amaze me musically. Two weeks ago it was a phenomenal performance at Bohemian Caverns by local musicians Allyn Johnson and Divine Order. This past Thursday, it was unexpectedly encountering gifted harmonica player Frederic Yonnet at the Holiday Inn. I stopped in after work at the hotel’s bar, the 21st Amendment, which features jazz on Thursdays and Fridays. I first heard Yonnet last March when he performed onstage with Prince in L.A. What a surprise it was to see him performing in the small lounge of a hotel across the street from where I now work. [Read more →]
Improvisation has been the norm in most cultures throughout most of human history. Nowadays, though, improvisation is largely associated with jazz, and its antithesis is Britney Spears at one end of the spectrum and a classical symphony at the other. Improvisation — that foundation of the musical impulse in man — has been drained out of classical music and much of contemporary popular music like the Taliban shutting down music stores. What happened? 
I mentioned this book by David Rothenberg — Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song — in an earlier post (
