A Good April for Wine and Music - Raffladini and Merlefest

April is not always the cruelest month. Around here I think that title should go to August with its heat and humidity.  I think April may be cruel for tempting us with how good life in North Carolina can be.

The 2012 Merlefest is over.  Now that is cruel.  Because Merlefest puts you in the mellow place without the use of any external drugs. It is a natural high.

As with my tradition, Merlefest weekend started with a visit to Raffaldini winery in Rhonda, NC. There moniker states, this is "Chianti in the Carolinas" with a fine Italian-styled winery overlooking what could be a Tuscan valley, all right in Wilkes County. The day was overcast so the view was more mysterious on this visit that he clear vista days of the past, but the wine and the visit was still enjoyable.

Jazz in April

I wanted to do a play on April in Paris as the Triangle really lights up for jazz performances in April.  But really it is a great time to talk about the most hidden jazz festival – the 22^nd NCCU Jazz Festival in Durham from April 16-21.

Take 6 and Cyrus Chestnut headline this fine jazz festival this year, but there are events of every price and style that any jazz fan can enjoy.  I plan to attend Wednesday’s Faculty Jazz Group sessions featuring the Faculty Jazz Groups of NCCU and UNC.  Sounds like the making of a real battle of the collegiate bands.  Check out their website and try to get out and hear some live music.

I have really enjoyed listening to Cyrus Chestnut’s work as a result of him coming to the area and if I can find a way I will try and make the Saturday night show on April 21.  I would suggest you try and find so Cyrus and take a listen.   Christian McBride plays on his Soul Food album.  He plays with the NCCU Jazz Ensemble Orchestra and it is only $20.

http://web.nccu.edu/jazzfestival/

Lost in the Trees

April 20 is the Lost in the Tree’s CD release party.  While this indie group is not jazz in the traditional sense, they have jazz elements.  This is at Cat’s Cradle Friday Night.  Just give me an excuse to go to Carrboro.  The new CD is called A Church that Fits Our Needs, which is a great title, but I am still trying to get accustomed to the music.

Peak City Blues Project, one of my bands, plays Deep South this Saturday, April 14 at 8:00 PM.  It will be a great throw down, but there will be very little jazz.  Just a lot of blues.  Still only $5.

Peak City Blues Project

Now about that April in Paris Song.  I think Monk’s version is the best even through Count Basie’s performance was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.   Monk has that funky Monk beat and Basie’s is just too smooth and city-fied for me.  Not bluesy enough.  But then there is that chorus from the Orchestra that shouts “One More Time,” that gives Basie a little edge.

April is a great month to get out and hear some music.  And as the Orchestra shouts “One more time!” 

Obamacare v. Roseveltcare, It Ain't Broccoli

Having been tasked for over twenty years with buying and administrating health insurance for small businesses, the health care debate and Supreme Court case and arguments have been of close interest to me.

Something must be done about US health care.  The cost is too great when compared to health care systems in other countries.  That is the premise.  But what can be done?

With one in eight US employees employed by the health care industry, the stakes are high and the chance for a true political answer low, as Hillary Clinton found out in the early 90's when she attempted to reform healthcare as a part of a promise from her husband's first campaign.  So I applaud the Obama administration for passing ANYTHING regarding improving health care.

But with so many interest involved, the Affordable Care Act is not perfect. But it is all we got and maybe our only chance to turn the cost of health care around.

Buying health care is not like buying broccoli.  Why would learned Justices even make such a comparison?  You might not like broccoli or paying for heath care, but you don't show up at the emergency room needing broccoli to live.  And that is the rub.  Until we endorse letting those people who need heath care but do not have coverage simply die instead of receiving care, our current system of paying for health care will be flawed and wrong.  No civilized society can endorse such a poor moral solution.  So we have profit v. the good of all debate.

Buying health care is more like buying retirement.  As some point, if you live long enough, you are going to need health care.  You are going to need retirement.  You are not going to need broccoli.

The Affordable Care Act tries to address this issue by mandating that all persons purchase health care.  The act has done this, not by a tax that creates a large federal agency to run heathcare, but by using the private health care market.

So is this the real debate?  The US Government can force us all to pay a tax that creates a large government bureaucracy (Social Security) but can't force us to buy a product in the free market?  If that is the Supreme Court ruling then look for the new era of Big Government.

How could conservative justices endorse such a ruling?  

A Clasical Time of the Year

Goldberg Variations

I don't really know why but winter seems to invite classical music. It has been very pleasant listening to the Bach and Mozart stations on Pandora this winter. Then there is Glenn Gould.

While reading Steve Jobs autobiography by Walter Isaacson, I was reminded of my music past when the book mentioned Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations recordings. While writing record reviews for the Daily Tar Heel (a ruse to acquire free recordings to review) I was given a re-release of Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations. Recorded in 1955, this performance and recording has legs. It evokes a certain feeling or environment and has remained in my primary music collection for a long time. All of time actually.

From my music study classes at UNC, I learned that Johann Sebastian Bach was a bit of a fuddy-duddy in his rejection of the Piano-Forte instrument that appeared in the last ten or so years of his life. He wrote his keyboards for organ and harpsichord. In the case of the Goldberg Variations, they were written for harpsichord. We have to think some Count from Saxony who could not sleep and demanded his musician perform the Variations to allow him to sleep. They still have a calming effect.

It is noted in Steve Jobs biography that, Gould had revisited the Goldberg variations in 1981 and Jobs enjoyed listening to both versions on his iPod. Just the impetous to watch the PBS documentary on Glenn Gould that is available on Netflix - Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould.

Gould of course performs the Goldberg Variations on piano and brings a new interpretation to the music. It is well worth the effort to listen to both the 1955 and the 1981 recordings and feel the maturity that developed in preforming the music some twenty six years later. One is brash and young and the other more thoughtful. Both are great for meditation. Music to get lost in.

I don't know why there is a disdain for cover bands. As if some great music should not be played again and again by different artists. You realize that the New York Philharmonic is just a cover band. Gould recognized this himself when he stated "I believe the only excuse we have for being musicians and making music in any fashion is to make it differently. To perform it differently. To establish the music's difference and vis a vie our own difference."

Both the 1955 & 1981 Recordings
Available from Sony Music

Glenn Gould's performance of the Goldberg Variations is still import and still listened to more than 25 years after his death. Not as a musical writer, but as a musical performer and artist. This may be the gift of the twentieth century--artist recordings that will be appreciated and loved for all of time. Just because the technology arrived during this century. It is said that the Goldberg Variations are named after the first musician who performed them. Wouldn’t it be great to have a high quality recording of how they were first played on the harpsichord by Johann Goldberg and compare it to Gould’s piano interpretation? I feel robbed not having this experience. But at least we have Gould and the 1955 and 1981 Variations.

A Return to Sporting Dress

The Sport Jacket Returns

Esquire magazine, that men's rag that is at least usable as a fashion guide compare to the over-the-top laughable items professed by GQ, indicates that the sport coat is the new statement of the alpha male when is says a sport coat easily acts as all-purpose outerwear and tells the world that you're not messing around. Not even off-duty. even off-duty.

John Varvatos Gray Sport Jacket

This last fall I bought not one, not two, but three sport coats.  An action that is very unusual given the lack of actually needing a sport coat for work or play.  I still had a great black leather jacket and a couple of cool sport coats from years past and as often as I am required to go upscale in dress even slightly, those could work.  But there was this checked Hugo Boss that was a steal and the John Varatos gray that would go with anything both end of summer wear on the rack, and finally a Michael Kors micro cord brown that just screamed wear me with jeans in the fall and winter.  How did I know I was responding to a fashion trend.

One real issue I have with fashion is cost.  The sport being worn by the alpha male to the left is cashmere and wool and says it cost $3,395.  Hello!  Anyone home in there.  Aren't we still in a recession.  There are starving kids with HIV in Africa how could you be so hedonistic?  I can buy a used car that will work very well for just a few dollars more.

Michael Kors Black Cord Jacket

But cost was not an issue with the Michael Kors.  You can now buy it online for less than I


 paid -- $139.  A real steal.  And now I find it also comes in Black. 

Another alpha male fashion action is to knot up for no reason.  Esquire adeptly says: There is no better way to get people guessing where you're going, or where you're coming from, than to wear a tie when you don't have to. A low-key knit tie, a big-balls patterned tie, whatever: A tie means you have places to be. Even if that place is a barstool. And as you can see from the photo below, I have no problem with knotting up for no reason.  Or even adding a vest.

Finally don't forget the brown shoes.  Black shoes says I am standing quietly in the background, but brown says, hey there is something going on downtown.  Here is a video on dress coats in New York, but look at the shoes.  Be they dark oil skin brown or light brown, brown is what is all about.  Even with a brown Michael Kors sport coat.

Triangle Wine Experience Over the Years

Paul Hobbs

 We have enjoyed the Triangle Wine Experience (TWE) for many years.  This event supports the Tammy Lynn Center. While drinking good wine is reason enough to drink wine, I am really putting myself out to drink wine for charity.

We have had great times and great dinners.  Last year we went to Midtown for Paul Hobbs' wine and had a wonderful evening of great fellowship and wine.  Years before I fondly (and vaguely from too much wine) remember a great night at current Bloomsbury Bistro chef John Toler's Cary restaurant, Cosmopolitan, and Switchback Ridge.  Kelly Peterson of Switchback Ridge told us of her grandfather's vineyard and how they had decided to keep it alive and make it special for his memory.  She enlisted one of the best winemakers, Robert Foley, to make the wine.  She said, "I am the wine faker, not the winemaker."  She is the vineyard manager and she manages to produce some great wines.

Switchback Ridge

As the years have gone by we have enjoyed this event a number of times at Four Square in Durham, An and Maxximillians in Cary.  One less than memorable evening was at  Vin Rouge where the chef said we cooked the meat on Tuesday and put in back in the pot to absorb the juices.  I turned to my dining companions and said "we are being fed leftovers!"  I was also influenced by trying to stay away from red meat.  Then we ended up seated with a number of Duke fans.  This must be hell, I thought.

So over the years we have used TWE to enjoy great wine and food.  Tonight we explore Favia.  The Wine Spectator writes:  Husband-and-wife team Andy Erickson and Annie Favia bring some impressive credentials to this new wine company and are certainly worth following. Erickson, is a U.C. Davis enology grad who has worked for Harlan and Staglin and currently makes wine for Screaming Eagle , Arietta , Dalla Valle and Jonata and consults for Dancing Hares (a new 5-acre vineyard at the foot of Howell Mountain and wine label focusing on a Cabernet-Merlot-Cab Franc blend, due soon) and Ovid , a startup with its debut 2005 vintage due this fall.


A review of the Favia website shows lots of yummy big reds.  I suspect there will be some red meat this evening.

Croquette Brasserie Tour de France Vin Rouge

French has become an important language in my house with a daughter and son-in-law in the Congo and another daughter having four years of French language. So a trip to Croquette, as I have written in the past, is like a trip to Paris, but only driving to North Hills.  It is also an opportunity to explore french wine.  For me, that means I must do my homework.  With a french red wine list ranging from $35 to $275 a bottle, it pays to do your homework.

Armed with dangerous knowledge that Bourdeaux's have had a great decade, I looked for that best value bottle on the wine list.  The first investigation was Château Lagarasso, Grand Vin de Bordeaux, Bourdeaux, France, 2008.  This was from a best value year, since the 2008's are not as highly prized, but still very good.  Some Internet research revealed this wine runs about $18 in the stores, so $40 in a restaurant was not too far off price wise.  There was also a Château La Boureé, Côtes de Castillon, Bourdeaux, France, 2009 at $38.  2009's are more highly prized so I was a bit suspicious for being priced less than the 2008..

Since we were going with friends, I thought I would play it safe and select the St. Cosmes, Côtes du Rhône, France, 2010, a Syrah based Cotes du Rhone. It has good Internet reviews and was described as a full bodied wine has an ample supply of dark, brooding black fruit that melds beautifully with a spiciness that lingers without overstaying its welcome.  It was bolder than most Cotes du Rhone owing the 100% Syrah fruit.  Robert Parker gave it an 89 and the wine was wonderful.  We asked for a second bottle but it was not to be found in the restaurant.  Alas, they were sold out.

So on to the value priced 2008 Château Lagarasso, Grand Vin de Bordeaux.  A little tight when first opened this wine blossomed with time, although still not as rich and tasty as the St. Cosmes.  Since we were not as happy with the Chateau Lagrasso as the St. Cosmes, we tried the Château La Boureé.  We also asked that it be decanted since it was 2009.  It showed much better than the Chateau Lagrasso.

When the wine is so good you want to know more about it, it is good wine.  The next time we go to Croquettte, if they are out of the St. Cosmes, I am heading straight to the 2009 Chateau La Bouree.  I am also on a search to find these in the local stores.