Jazz and Wine Pairings

Visit our tasting room sponsors to sample their wines while enjoying local jazz

Saturday, June 5

Herb Gibson Trio

Location: : Murphy-Goode Tasting Room
20 Matheson Streeet, phone 707-431-7644
Time: 3 – 5 pm

Herb Gibson is jazz history — a fine vibes player, as well as a great singer, Herb is heir to the throne of the late great Milt Jackson. Join us at the Murphy-Goode Tasting Room in downtown Healdsburg, where you can drink in the Murphy-Goodeness of some of our all-time favorite wines. We think you will enjoy the tradition of all things Goode — friendship, hard work, a wicked sense of humor, a great bottle of wine, and jazz.

Saturday, June 12

Gary Johnson Trio

Location: Topel Tasting Room
125 Matheson Street, phone 707-433-4166
Time: 3 – 5 pm

Local saxman Gary Johnson fronts a trio at Topel Tasting Room, just a few steps east of the Plaza on Matheson. Mark and Donnis Topel craft exquisite, artisan wines that have won medals at prestigious wine competitions and praise from the nation’s best-known wine critics. Visit their tasting room and enjoy melodic jazz as you sniff, swirl and sip. Appetizers provided, wine available by the glass.

Eddie and Madeline Duran Trio

Location: Seasons of the Vineyard Bar & Boutique
113 Plaza Street, phone 431-2222
Time: 4 – 6 pm

San Francisco Bay Area’s favorite, the Eddie and Madeline Duran Trio  brings their live instrumental jazz to wine country! Join us at Seasons of the Vineyard on the Plaza for a taste of your favorite Ferrari-Carano wines paired with delectable small bites. Sip and sample, sway to the beat of modern, Latin, Brazilian, and bebop jazz tunes sure to soothe your soul while we satisfy your palate. Start your summer evening out groovin’!

Art of the Solo Guitar

A tribute to the late Jimmy Wyble
Dedicated to the memory of Taku Sakashta

Oscar Castro-Neves, Romero Lubambo, Sid Jacobs, Bobby Vega, Ricardo Peixoto, Randy Vincent, Christian Foley-Beining, Kai Devitt-Lee and Kevin O’Neal (with vocalist Patrice Quinn)

Morning Workshop | Benefit Auction

Location Healdsburg
Time: Noon to 3 pm
Tickets $15.00, $10.00 for students and seniors (65+)
Event sponsors: Healdsburg Guitar Festival, Allied Lutherie

Following the morning workshop in the “Art of the Solo Guitar,” the afternoon concert will feature a stellar lineup of guitarists performing solo pieces dedicated to the late Jimmy Wyble. Many of these musicians will be playing their guitars or bass guitars made in Healdsburg by Tom Ribbecke and crew. Expect some surprises and a grand finale.

The event will be held at the beautiful grounds of Tom Ribbecke’s private “Barn” workshop, located on five pastoral acres off Limerick Lane. Tom will conduct tours, discuss and show works in progress, and answer questions about the art of building contemporary guitars. The highly acclaimed luthier has spent his long career perfecting his craft and pushing the limits of design. With the help of Bobby Vega, bassist extraordinaire, Tom developed a new instrument they named the Halfling.™ The heart of the design is an unusual soundboard in which the bass side is flat, and the treble side is arched.

The lineup for this special concert is still evolving. Among the new additions are Kevin O’Neal with vocalist Patrice Quinn (left), and local teen star Kai Devitt-Lee, along with other area favorites such as Randy Vincent and Christian Foley-Beining. Who knows who will show up the day of the event? The only way you’ll know is if you’re there! 

Bring a picnic, a blanket and umbrella and enjoy the afternoon listening to world class musicians playing at the birthplace of the Halfling.

Art of the Solo Guitar

Morning: Guitar Workshop

Afternoon Concert | Benefit Auction

Workshop: Making Music Part of Your Life
Time: 10 am to noon
Location: Announced upon confirmed registration
Information and registration: 707 431-0125
Free to all students of primary or secondary school age with an interest in music.

Presented by Ribbecke Guitars and Jazz Masters Workshop
Instructors: Bobby Vega and Tom Ribbecke

Bassist Bobby Vega and guitar maker Tom Ribbecke aim to inspire students to learn or continue to play music by talking about their lives and experiences in the music world. Due to the cutbacks in music programs, great teachers and musicians are no longer resident in the schools to provide motivation and inspiration to young people to study music. Tom and Bobby feel it is very important to talk to aspiring music students about the many different ways they can be involved in music, and hopefully spark them to follow their dreams.

Special Drawing: Win a guitar donated by Jazz Masters Workshop!

This workshop is free. So come one, come all students and have a good time being entertained and inspired. Bring your instrument (optional). Don’t forget there’s a concert with illustrious guitar soloists to follow.

Benefit Auction now ongoing
Ribbecke Halfling Guitar

 A special benefit auction is now ongoing at eBay, with the ending time May 27, 11:45am  for a 17″ Halfling Archtop with a retail value of $7500. Bidding started at $2000.
» Follow this link to learn more, bid or buy from eBay.

Check the Ribbecke website for more information on the Halfling, or place your bid at  the eBay auction page.

“Keepers of the Flame”

Jason Moran and the Bandwagon
with special guest Bill Frisell

Gretchen Parlato Group

Dafnis Prieto Si o Si Quartet
with Peter Apfelbaum

Location: Rodney Strong Vineyards
Address: 11455 Old Redwood Highway, Healdsburg
Time: 2 pm, gates open at 1 pm
Tickets: $45.00, $30.00 for students & seniors (65+)
Children 10 and under are free

The Future is Now!

Reverence for jazz’s pantheon of veteran masters should never blind us to the wealth of brilliant young musicians busy expanding the music’s frontiers, responding to the present moment with highly personal sounds crafted from an ever-increasing array of sources. This triple bill, essentially a mini-festival within the festival, showcases three extraordinary young bandleaders who embody the way the best musicians assert an individual vision by absorbing and distilling a multiplicity of influences.

This season the accent is on youth, with a bevy of brilliant young bandleaders including  iconoclastic pianist/composer Jason Moran, whose supremely resourceful trio The Bandwagon is joined by guitar star Bill Frisell; Thelonious Monk Competition winner and bossa nova-besotted vocalist Gretchen Parlato; and the sensational Cuban drummer/composer Dafnis Prieto, leader of the kinetic Si o Si Quartet with Berkeley-raised multi-instrumental magician Peter Apfelbaum.

You can find more information on these performers and their bandmates on this special page. Please purchase your tickets now so you won’t miss this look at the new faces of jazz, the keepers of the flame.

Festival Jazz in the Lobby

Hotel Healdsburg Lobby

Address: 25 Matheson Street, Healdsburg
Show Time: 9 pm to midnight
No cover, full bar and light menu available

Friday and Saturday nights all year long, the Hotel Healdsburg Lobby hosts jazz in duo or trio combinations — sometimes larger — for relaxed yet intriguing and satisfying musical evenings. During the Festival, these “jazz in the Lobby” nights are all the more special, as it’s not uncommon for some of the nationally known performers in town for the week drop by to play informal sets with the scheduled band. Which means you never know who will show up — so drop by and find out!

Friday night:

Lorca Hart Trio with Craig Handy

Location: Hotel Healdsburg Lobby
Address: 25 Matheson Street, Healdsburg
Show Time: 9 pm to midnight

Lorca Hart was raised on rhythm. Growing up in a highly musical family, he absorbed the intricacies of the trap set from his father, drum maestro Billy Hart. As a student at CalArts in the mid-1990s he developed an expansive, insistently swinging approach to time through studies with drum masters Tootie Heath and Joe LaBarbera, and avant gard icons Charlie Haden and Wadada Leo Smith.

Since then he’s become a fixture on the Southland jazz scene sought out by succession of esteemed veterans, including guitarists Calvin Keys, Anthony Wilson, Julian Lage, bassist John Heard, trumpeter Hugh Masakela, and saxophonists Herman Riley, Azar Lawrence, Red Holloway, Plas Johnson, and Bennie Maupin.

His powerful trio is joined by Craig Handy, the Berkeley-raised tenor saxophonist who’s toured the world leading the celebrated Mingus Big Band, and will lead his own quartet the next night.

Saturday Night:

Craig Handy Quartet
with Surprise Guests

“Improvisation…relentless in its invention and in its velocity.”—New York Times

With his big swaggering sound and penchant for hurtling, breakneck solos, tenor saxophonist Craig Handy is a wonder to behold, an improviser who brings a sassy sense of joy to every bandstand he inhabits. No wonder he was cast as tenor sax patriarch Coleman Hawkins in Robert Altman’s 1996 film “Kansas City.”

A product of Berkeley High School’s vaunted jazz band, he first made his mark with ace talent scouts like Betty Carter and Art Blakey. While he hasn’t recorded prolifically under his own name (he made two critically praised CDs for Arabesque in the early 90s and two strong sessions for Sirocco about a decade later), he’s very well represented on albums by South African piano great Abdullah Ibrahim, drum legend Roy Haynes, and “Acoustic Masters II,” an all-star project with Bobby Hutcherson, Ron Carter and Mulgrew Miller.

Craig Handy is best known for his work with the septet Mingus Dynasty and his leadership of the Mingus Big Band, where he’s immersed himself in the passionate, roiling musical world of Charles Mingus. Often drawn to Afro-Cuban grooves in his own projects, he presents a top-shelf quartet for this Saturday night show, featuring several guests drawn from other festival acts.

Saturday Night at the Raven

Charlie Haden with
Geri Allen  & Ravi Coltrane

Produced in association with Jill Newman Productions

and the Healdsburg High School Jazz Band

Location: Raven Theater
Address: 115 North Street, Healdsburg
Time: 7:30 pm (please note start time)
Tickets: $45 General, $65 Gold Circle

“Few artists have availed themselves of America’s creative freedom more than Haden.”
—San Jose Mercury News

Charlie Haden has forged a brilliant career out of seizing the musical moment. He returns to Healdsburg for an unprecedented trio encounter with pianist Geri Allen, with whom he first recorded more than two decades ago, and tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, the son of Haden’s late partner in sonic revolution, John Coltrane. “No matter who I’m playing with, spontaneity takes priority,” Haden says. “Making something happen that’s never happened before, that’s what I stress more than anything else. And I seek out musicians that feel the way that I do.”

Haden found his first group of likeminded improvisers in late 1950s Los Angeles, where he became a founding member of Ornette Coleman’s radical but blues-drenched quartet. In a generation rife with bassists boasting flawless technique, Haden stood out as a player capable of expressing the deepest of emotions with seemingly simple, harmonically open lines. His gift for cutting to the heart of a composition while leaving ample space for other musicians has made Haden a galvanizing collaborator, whether anchoring Keith Jarrett’s classic 1970s quartet, caressing spirituals with Hank Jones, creating moody film noir-inspired albums with Quartet West or leading his politically charged Liberation Music Orchestra.

The brilliant pianist Geri Allen was given a boost by Haden himself in the late 1980s. The Detroit native had already earned a reputation as a fierce improviser through her edgy work with Steve Coleman and the M-Base Collective when Haden and drummer Paul Motian joined her in a searching trio that revealed her burnished lyricism. Now an esteemed master herself, Allen has recorded more than a dozen albums, including two 2006 sessions that reflect her broad, historically grounded vision. She spearheaded “Zodiac Suite: Revisited,” which brought to light a forgotten masterpiece by the seminal pianist/composer Mary Lou Williams, and released “Timeless Portraits and Dreams” (Telarc), a soaring project that effectively bridges jazz, spirituals and classical music.

While his surname attracted attention when he first started performing in New York, Ravi Coltrane has taken his time developing his own sound. Like Allen, he spent formative years with altoist Steve Coleman. He and the pianist have worked together frequently, and she performed on his second album “From the Round Box.” He’s truly come into his own in recent years, holding his own with Joe Lovano and David Liebman on the 2008 Saxophone Summit album “Seraphic Light.” Last year he toured extensively with the Blue Note 7, an all-star band assembled to celebrate the label’s 75th year, and released the luminous album “Blending Times” (ArtistShare), which features Haden’s ravishing composition “For Turiya,” a piece the bassist wrote years ago for Ravi’s mother, Alice Coltrane.

Friday Night at the Raven

Esperanza Spalding Group

Tacuma King and the
Children’s Percussion Workshop

Location: Raven Theater
Address: 115 North Street, Healdsburg
Time: 8:00 pm (please note start time)
Tickets: $45 General, $65 Gold Circle

“Whether exploding into vocalese or making her bass solo sound like a horn, she’s a spark plug who dances as she grooves through a funked-up and rocked-out repertoire.”—Billboard

From Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie to Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, jazz’s greatest figures have often served as musical ambassadors. Bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding has stepped confidently into the role of jazz’s most charismatic 21st century emissary, equally comfortable laying down grooves on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” the Village Vanguard, the White House, or Oslo’s Spektrum, where she performed at the Nobel Peace Price Concert last year at the invitation of President Obama.

With a beguiling blend of Brazilian melodies, Afro-Caribbean grooves, post-bop harmonies and lilting vocals, 25-year-old Spalding combines the imaginative flights of a serious improviser with the stage presence and musical accessibility of a pop star. Possessing a huge sound and singular sense of time, she’s already racked up an impressive array of credits, including pianist Michel Camilo, bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Pat Metheny, vocalist Patti Austin, and saxophonist Joe Lovano, who has built his celebrated Us Five band around the powerfully propulsive pulse of her bass. Already a heavyweight talent, Spalding is growing by leaps and bounds with a deliciously funky sound that’s both bracingly personal and embracingly accessible.

Her latest album, “Esperanza” on Heads Up, documents her rapidly maturing conception as a bandleader who’s honed a world-jazz repertoire featuring her lithe originals and standards in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Her band for this performance includes guitarist Ricardo Vogt, pianist Leo Genovese and Justin Brown on drums.

African drum and dance master Tacuma King has been an essential part of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival since its founding in 1999. A musical charmer and master educator, King possesses a gift for teaching children musical technique, song, dance and story, with an emphasis on traditional African culture, using a variety of percussion instruments. He presents a program featuring this year’s class, offering a heartening perspective on jazz’s power to engage young musicians.

Benefactors Dinner and Concert

George Cables Trio
with Craig Handy

and the

Healdsburg High School Jazz Band

Location: Coppola Winery
Address: 300 Via Archimedes, Geyserville
Time: 6 pm
Tickets: Limited availability, by invitation only

As a special thank you to our benefactors this year, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival will be hosting a Benefactor’s Dinner at the newly remodeled Francis Ford Coppola Winery. Supporters of the Festival will glimpse the Coppola winery before it opens to the public and dine al fresco Coppola style outside under the oaks. It is not too late to become a patron and attend this very special event.

George Cables has been a friend and favorite performer at many of our Healdsburg Jazz Festival events. For this occasion he is joined by old friend and colleague Craig Handy, a Bay Area saxophone stalwart who has toured the world leading the celebrated Mingus Big Band. The local Healdsburg High School Jazz Band will put on a special performance as well.

We would like to thank all of our patrons, sponsors, and supporters for helping bring 10 days of extraordinary music and culture to our community. For more information about this very special event, please contact the HJF office at (707) 433.4633 or contact us by email at info[at]healdsburgjazzfestival.org.

» To learn more about Patron status, please visit this page.

Free Concert in the Plaza

Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco

Location: Recreation Park
Address: Piper at University, Healdsburg
Time: 6 – 8:00 pm
Free concert

The town of Healdsburg is well known for its yearly series of free concerts, Tuesdays in the Plaza. It’s been a tradition for over a decade that the official kick-off of this series features jazz from the Healdsburg Jazz Festival. 2010 is no exception, as we present the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco in what promises to be a lively summer sunset show.

Under the direction of the great flutist/arranger John Calloway, the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco (LJYE) has become a prime proving ground for gifted young musicians ages 10-18. Dedicated to preserving the traditions of Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban music, the LYJE attracts many aspiring professional musicians.

Since debuting at Masonic Auditorium with a tribute to Cal Tjader in 2001 as the opening act for Poncho Sanchez, the group has shared stages with legendary Cuban bassist Israel “Cachao” López, Cuban piano virtuoso Chuchito Valdés, and the Grammy Award-winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra. Welcome them to town with some Healdsburg hospitality on Tuesday, June 8.

Jazz and Wine Dinner

Kai Devitt-Lee Trio

Location: Dry Creek Kitchen
Address: 317 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg
Time: 7 – 9 pm
Tickets: No cover; dinner reservations recommended (707 431-0330)

Even though he’s only 16, guitarist Kai Devitt-Lee is already a local fixture who has soaked up experience sitting in with various groups around town. With his fleet fingers and mature approach to improvising, the Healdsburg native is at the start of what promises to be an impressive career. This year he was chosen out of the entire state to be the guitarist with the Californian 2010 All State Honors High School Jazz Band.

For his Festival debut as a leader, he is joined by bassist Miles Wick and drummer Jimmy Gallagher. Kai plays a special guitar made by Healdsburg master luthier Tom Ribbecke.

The Dry Creek Kitchen is one of the culinary landmarks of the Wine Country. Enjoy world-class dining from master chef Charlie Palmer while enjoying the Kai Devitt-Lee trio during this festival week. For more information visit charliepalmer.com.