Southern Sonoma Country Life

Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the End of World War II. Lest We Forget.

This first week of September, 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. Take a pause from the never ending, mind-numbing news of pandemic, wildfire and politics to remember and honor the myriad service members and Home Front workers who helped preserve freedom and democracy here in the States, in the UK and in allied and commonwealth countries three quarters of a century ago. 

To quote The National WWII Museum’s website:

"On May 8, 1945, World War II in Europe came to an end. As the news of Germany’s surrender reached the rest of the world, joyous crowds gathered to celebrate in the streets, clutching newspapers that declared Victory in Europe (V-E Day). Later that year, US President Harry S. Truman announced Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II. The news spread quickly and celebrations erupted across the United States. On September 2, 1945, formal surrender documents were signed aboard the USS Missouri, designating the day as the official Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day)."

V-J Day was especially momentous: "The gruesome and exhausting war was officially over—but the day was also bittersweet for the many Americans whose loved ones would not be returning home. “More than 400,000 Americans gave their lives to secure our nation’s freedom, and in the midst of exultation, there was recognition that the true meaning of the day was best represented by those who were not present to celebrate,” said Robert Citino, PhD, Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at The National WWII Museum.

Especially front of mind this week are the millions of amputees amongst service men and women past and present in combat around the world. We won't brush aside history as if it never happened. 

Disabled veterans we hear you and see you and we're humbled by your service. 

photos via Pinterest

“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any treat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”

- Douglas MacArthur

 

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

 

Healdsburg Jazz Announces Acclaimed Composer & Bandleader Marcus Shelby As New Artistic Director

Renowned Northern California jazz institution Healdsburg Jazz announces today the appointment of acclaimed composer and bandleader Marcus Shelby as their new Artistic Director. Shelby will lead the organization and its flagship Healdsburg Jazz Festival into its next generation of dynamic and innovative programming. Shelby takes over the new role Oct. 1, 2020 from the festival's founder, artistic director and guiding spirit, Jessica Felix, who launched the festival in 1999. Shelby has worked closely with Felix over the past decade and looks towards the future to maintain and elevate the spirit of the festival.

 

"Jessica did an incredible job building the Healdsburg Jazz Festival with first-class talent, including national and local artists," said Shelby. "She never dumbed down the programming to get more people to come. I'm looking forward to expanding her extraordinary legacy and also develop a fresh vision that reflects my interests and strengths."

 

"We are so fortunate to have Marcus Shelby on board as artistic director to help guide Healdsburg Jazz as it enters a new chapter in its history," said Jack Raineault, Board Chair of Healdsburg Jazz. "He has contributed so much to the educational component of the organization and is passionate about our mission. He knows the music scene both locally and nationally and brings the perspective of a musician to the artistic director role. Marcus has also focused on social justice issues and building community in his music and in the organizations he has been a part of. We are excited at the prospect of what new directions Healdsburg Jazz will take both artistically and in its commitment to promoting social and cultural connections under Marcus's leadership."

 

Shelby is taking the helm at a moment of unprecedented challenges for the performing arts due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, and he's already working with the festival's Board of Directors on strategizing for the 2021 festival. Beyond the lauded spring jazz festival, he's ideally suited for running the nonprofit organization's year-round concert series and education programs. Shelby has a strong track record in the picturesque Sonoma County town near the Russian River, which is one reason why Felix is so confident that Shelby is the right person for the job. "He's done a lot up here already and everybody loves him," Felix said. "He's really endeared himself to this area. He believes in the festival and believes in me."

 

Felix first met Shelby about 30 years ago, when Los Angeles drum legend Billy Higgins, a close friend of hers, recommended that she book Shelby's band Black/Note at the Eddie Moore Jazz Festival. Higgins had mentored the young group at the World Stage, the performance space he co-founded in LA's Leimert Park neighborhood, and on his advice Felix hired the quintet sight unseen. Though Shelby relocated to San Francisco a few years later it wasn't until a decade ago that he started playing an important role at Healdsburg, when Felix hired him to bring his Black History Month programming to local schools. A prestigious grant the festival received from the James Irvine Foundation enabled Shelby to create and direct the Healdsburg Freedom Jazz Choir, a 100-piece community choir that has continued over the years, perform in various settings with his big band and small group.

 

"Jessica and I have become good friends and we've worked very closely together on these projects, like working out ideas for the choir," he said. "She built the festival from scratch and she's leaving her life's work in my hands. We've spent countless hours talking about these things."

 

Shelby has deep roots in the San Francisco Bay Area arts scene. He's a composer in residence with the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival and has taken on a variety of roles at SFJAZZ, including a stint as a Resident Artistic Director. He's a teacher at the San Francisco Community Music Center and has served on the San Francisco Arts Commission since his appointment by the late Mayor Ed Lee in 2014. That's all on top of his regular gigging as a leader and a sideman.

 

On his decision to become the Artistic Director of Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Shelby comments, "Leading a major jazz festival supports and enriches my professional practice in many ways. Some colleagues who are much better known are part of organizations they lead, Wynton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jason Moran at the Kennedy Center, and Christian McBride in several organizations. That inspired me to think bigger and really embrace the possibility of working with a large community of artists, and influence how this music is curated. I need to keep evolving and growing."

 

Creative growth has been the hallmark of Shelby's career. Born February 2, 1966 in Anchorage, Alaska, he grew up in Sacramento and first gained attention on the burgeoning LA scene in the early 1990s as a co-founder of the hard-bop band Black/Note (which also launched top-shelf New York drummer Willie Jones III). He earned the Charles Mingus Scholarship to study at Cal Arts in Valencia, where he also worked closely with flutist/composer James Newton and bassist Charlie Haden (both artists closely linked to the Healdsburg Jazz Festival). Black/Note recorded four albums, including 1994's Jungle Music (Columbia) and 1996's Nothin' But the Swing (Impulse!/GRP).

 

Relocating to San Francisco in 1996, Shelby quickly established himself as an essential creative force on the Bay Area arts scene. Leading both the Marcus Shelby Trio and the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, he earned increasingly prestigious commissions from dance companies, theatrical productions, and presenters such as Intersection for the Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. No one has a closer view of his determined growth than Kate Dumbleton, his manager and co-founder of his label Noir Records.

 

"In all the years I've known Marcus he's always been poised to take the work that he does in multiple directions at any given moment," says Dumbleton, Executive and Artistic Director of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and Associate Professor at the Art Institute of Chicago. "He's a conceptualizer. He knows how to connect history to musical ideas and storytelling. He thinks in really interesting ways about narrative. When I first met him he was really interested in working with dancers, choreographers, theater artists, and filmmakers."

 

Shelby started exploring history and narrative in his own work with the release of 2006's Port Chicago (Noir Records), a suite for his jazz orchestra inspired by the World War II miscarriage of justice that saw 50 young black seamen convicted in the largest mutiny trial in U.S. naval history (a story that unfolded in the Bay Area). Since then he's focused his creative energy on a series of hard-swinging works exploring key historical events and personalities, like 2008's two-disc Harriet Tubman (Noir Records), 2011's Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Porto Franco), and 2018's Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues, a suite commissioned by the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.

 

In recent years, he's also served as a musical foil for playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith throughout the interview-driven creation of her one-woman show about the school-to-prison pipeline, Notes From the Field. "Her process is genius," he said. "As much as I can absorb from her, I'm just trying to find ways that I can use blues and swing to tell these different stories."

 

In many ways, Shelby has turned his orchestra into an exemplar of the kind of equitable society he advocates for off the bandstand. It's an ensemble that embodies the diversity that makes the Bay Area such a creative hothouse, where the horn section features veteran masters sitting next to rising teenagers. Over the years, he's become increasingly proactive in making sure that women are well represented in the band.

 

"I've thought a lot about how an ensemble can create an overall expression and the diversity of the band can really enhance that," he said. "A big band looks like a village, with good young players, older players who can serve as mentors, and everything in between."

 

The Healdsburg Jazz Festival offers a larger forum for his ideas and Shelby is committed to continuing the festival's track record as a binding force in the town. With the support of Emeritus Artistic Director Felix, who will be on call for advice, he sees a bright, innovative future for an event that has earned universal respect for uncompromising standards.

 

"One of my goals is to maintain a strong local and Bay Area presence," Shelby said. "I realize you can't book everybody. I'm really committed to making the most diverse festival possible, with the highest degree of talent. That's always going to be my goal."

 

About Healdsburg Jazz

Healdsburg Jazz celebrates the indigenous American art form known as Jazz. Over the past two decades, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival has become a favorite local tradition with a growing national reputation. The 10-day festival of public performances by world-renowned musicians in diverse settings, including the historic Raven Theater, the glamorous Hotel Healdsburg, and several boutique restaurants and wineries, has grown into one of the North Bay's most celebrated annual musical events.

 

In addition to the annual festival, held the first week of June each year, the non-profit 501(c)(3) organization sponsors numerous

music education programs in Healdsburg area schools for primary and secondary school students, and presents a series of Jazz Masters concerts throughout the year.

For more information, please visit: https://www.healdsburgjazz.org

Healdsburg Jazz Announces Acclaimed Composer & Bandleader Marcus Shelby As New Artistic Director

Renowned Northern California jazz institution Healdsburg Jazz announces today the appointment of acclaimed composer and bandleader Marcus Shelby as their new Artistic Director. Shelby will lead the organization and its flagship Healdsburg Jazz Festival into its next generation of dynamic and innovative programming. Shelby takes over the new role Oct. 1, 2020 from the festival's founder, artistic director and guiding spirit, Jessica Felix, who launched the festival in 1999. Shelby has worked closely with Felix over the past decade and looks towards the future to maintain and elevate the spirit of the festival.

 

"Jessica did an incredible job building the Healdsburg Jazz Festival with first-class talent, including national and local artists," said Shelby. "She never dumbed down the programming to get more people to come. I'm looking forward to expanding her extraordinary legacy and also develop a fresh vision that reflects my interests and strengths."

 

"We are so fortunate to have Marcus Shelby on board as artistic director to help guide Healdsburg Jazz as it enters a new chapter in its history," said Jack Raineault, Board Chair of Healdsburg Jazz. "He has contributed so much to the educational component of the organization and is passionate about our mission. He knows the music scene both locally and nationally and brings the perspective of a musician to the artistic director role. Marcus has also focused on social justice issues and building community in his music and in the organizations he has been a part of. We are excited at the prospect of what new directions Healdsburg Jazz will take both artistically and in its commitment to promoting social and cultural connections under Marcus's leadership."

 

Shelby is taking the helm at a moment of unprecedented challenges for the performing arts due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, and he's already working with the festival's Board of Directors on strategizing for the 2021 festival. Beyond the lauded spring jazz festival, he's ideally suited for running the nonprofit organization's year-round concert series and education programs. Shelby has a strong track record in the picturesque Sonoma County town near the Russian River, which is one reason why Felix is so confident that Shelby is the right person for the job. "He's done a lot up here already and everybody loves him," Felix said. "He's really endeared himself to this area. He believes in the festival and believes in me."

 

Felix first met Shelby about 30 years ago, when Los Angeles drum legend Billy Higgins, a close friend of hers, recommended that she book Shelby's band Black/Note at the Eddie Moore Jazz Festival. Higgins had mentored the young group at the World Stage, the performance space he co-founded in LA's Leimert Park neighborhood, and on his advice Felix hired the quintet sight unseen. Though Shelby relocated to San Francisco a few years later it wasn't until a decade ago that he started playing an important role at Healdsburg, when Felix hired him to bring his Black History Month programming to local schools. A prestigious grant the festival received from the James Irvine Foundation enabled Shelby to create and direct the Healdsburg Freedom Jazz Choir, a 100-piece community choir that has continued over the years, perform in various settings with his big band and small group.

 

"Jessica and I have become good friends and we've worked very closely together on these projects, like working out ideas for the choir," he said. "She built the festival from scratch and she's leaving her life's work in my hands. We've spent countless hours talking about these things."

 

Shelby has deep roots in the San Francisco Bay Area arts scene. He's a composer in residence with the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival and has taken on a variety of roles at SFJAZZ, including a stint as a Resident Artistic Director. He's a teacher at the San Francisco Community Music Center and has served on the San Francisco Arts Commission since his appointment by the late Mayor Ed Lee in 2014. That's all on top of his regular gigging as a leader and a sideman.

 

On his decision to become the Artistic Director of Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Shelby comments, "Leading a major jazz festival supports and enriches my professional practice in many ways. Some colleagues who are much better known are part of organizations they lead, Wynton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jason Moran at the Kennedy Center, and Christian McBride in several organizations. That inspired me to think bigger and really embrace the possibility of working with a large community of artists, and influence how this music is curated. I need to keep evolving and growing."

 

Creative growth has been the hallmark of Shelby's career. Born February 2, 1966 in Anchorage, Alaska, he grew up in Sacramento and first gained attention on the burgeoning LA scene in the early 1990s as a co-founder of the hard-bop band Black/Note (which also launched top-shelf New York drummer Willie Jones III). He earned the Charles Mingus Scholarship to study at Cal Arts in Valencia, where he also worked closely with flutist/composer James Newton and bassist Charlie Haden (both artists closely linked to the Healdsburg Jazz Festival). Black/Note recorded four albums, including 1994's Jungle Music (Columbia) and 1996's Nothin' But the Swing (Impulse!/GRP).

 

Relocating to San Francisco in 1996, Shelby quickly established himself as an essential creative force on the Bay Area arts scene. Leading both the Marcus Shelby Trio and the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, he earned increasingly prestigious commissions from dance companies, theatrical productions, and presenters such as Intersection for the Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. No one has a closer view of his determined growth than Kate Dumbleton, his manager and co-founder of his label Noir Records.

 

"In all the years I've known Marcus he's always been poised to take the work that he does in multiple directions at any given moment," says Dumbleton, Executive and Artistic Director of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and Associate Professor at the Art Institute of Chicago. "He's a conceptualizer. He knows how to connect history to musical ideas and storytelling. He thinks in really interesting ways about narrative. When I first met him he was really interested in working with dancers, choreographers, theater artists, and filmmakers."

 

Shelby started exploring history and narrative in his own work with the release of 2006's Port Chicago (Noir Records), a suite for his jazz orchestra inspired by the World War II miscarriage of justice that saw 50 young black seamen convicted in the largest mutiny trial in U.S. naval history (a story that unfolded in the Bay Area). Since then he's focused his creative energy on a series of hard-swinging works exploring key historical events and personalities, like 2008's two-disc Harriet Tubman (Noir Records), 2011's Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Porto Franco), and 2018's Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues, a suite commissioned by the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.

 

In recent years, he's also served as a musical foil for playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith throughout the interview-driven creation of her one-woman show about the school-to-prison pipeline, Notes From the Field. "Her process is genius," he said. "As much as I can absorb from her, I'm just trying to find ways that I can use blues and swing to tell these different stories."

 

In many ways, Shelby has turned his orchestra into an exemplar of the kind of equitable society he advocates for off the bandstand. It's an ensemble that embodies the diversity that makes the Bay Area such a creative hothouse, where the horn section features veteran masters sitting next to rising teenagers. Over the years, he's become increasingly proactive in making sure that women are well represented in the band.

 

"I've thought a lot about how an ensemble can create an overall expression and the diversity of the band can really enhance that," he said. "A big band looks like a village, with good young players, older players who can serve as mentors, and everything in between."

 

The Healdsburg Jazz Festival offers a larger forum for his ideas and Shelby is committed to continuing the festival's track record as a binding force in the town. With the support of Emeritus Artistic Director Felix, who will be on call for advice, he sees a bright, innovative future for an event that has earned universal respect for uncompromising standards.

 

"One of my goals is to maintain a strong local and Bay Area presence," Shelby said. "I realize you can't book everybody. I'm really committed to making the most diverse festival possible, with the highest degree of talent. That's always going to be my goal."

 

About Healdsburg Jazz

Healdsburg Jazz celebrates the indigenous American art form known as Jazz. Over the past two decades, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival has become a favorite local tradition with a growing national reputation. The 10-day festival of public performances by world-renowned musicians in diverse settings, including the historic Raven Theater, the glamorous Hotel Healdsburg, and several boutique restaurants and wineries, has grown into one of the North Bay's most celebrated annual musical events.

 

In addition to the annual festival, held the first week of June each year, the non-profit 501(c)(3) organization sponsors numerous

music education programs in Healdsburg area schools for primary and secondary school students, and presents a series of Jazz Masters concerts throughout the year.

For more information, please visit: https://www.healdsburgjazz.org

Discover More Award-Winning Wineries, Craft Breweries, Cideries and Micro Distilleries with the New Sonoma County Tasting Pass

Good news for staycationers and wine country visitors alike. In an effort to showcase the vast diversity of the local craft beverage community, Sonoma County Tourism (SCT) has rolled out the “Sonoma County Tasting Pass,” featuring award-winning wineries, renowned craft breweries and cideries, and unique micro distilleries.

The Sonoma County Tasting Pass is a collection of tasting flights and discounts, presented by over 20 craft beverage producers throughout the County. Offered for purchase on SCT’s website, consumers have three pass options, at different price points: 1-day for $44.99; 3-day for $79.99; or 90-days for $149.99. After purchasing the pass, it is instantly delivered to the purchaser’s phone via text and email and is ready to use immediately. When visiting a participating business, consumers simply present their phone to the staff member to redeem the special offer.

Each participating business is offering enticing deals, including discounts on purchases. For example, boutique winery Armida is offering a tasting flight plus 20% off six bottles and more, while Ace Cider is offering a tasting flight and 25% off the total bill.

“As a distillery deeply committed to quality and innovation in making and serving the best grain-to-glass spirits in the world, Spirit Works is proud to be highlighted among such an amazing group of creative, artisan producers,” says Ashby Marshall, owner and spirit maker at Spirit Works Distillery, which was named ‘Distillery of the Year’ by American Distillery Institute in July 2020. 

The pass is the result of a partnership with Bandwango, a travel technology platform, that creates access to places and experiences for both visitors and locals to enjoy. Bandwango works with over 85 destinations throughout the U.S. and Canada, creating passes of all kinds, with great success.   

“We are excited to launch the Sonoma County Tasting Pass,” said Todd O’Leary, vice president of marketing and communications at Sonoma County Tourism. Our partnership with Bandwango is creating new opportunities to package and promote Sonoma County to visitors and residents alike.”  

For more information about the Sonoma County Tasting Pass, visit: https://explore.sonomacounty.com