Category: Music

I usually listen to Alisa Clancy on the jazz station, KCSM on my way into work. On Monday morning she was giving away tickets for the 10 o’clock show at Yoshi’s Monday night. I called in and won! The question I answered to win the tickets was "Who was our 37th President? Monday would have been his 94th Birthday." (answer at the end of this post)  Duke and I were already planning on going out to dinner with some people from work so after dinner we just drove over to Yoshi’s in time for the show. We saw and heard The Moutin Reunion Quartet from Paris.They are exceptional musicians. There were probably only about 40 people in the audience and Yoshi’s is a wonderful place for live music. What a great evening.

We had such a good time that we decided to go to the 8:00 show on Thursday nigh to hear E.S.T. Esbjorn Sveneeon Trio. They were wonderful too.  We are very lucky to be able to hear wonderful live music, quite inexpensively in such a wonderful venue so close to home.

I highly recommend Yoshi’s. If you live in the San Francisco area and have never been there you are missing out and if you are visiting this area a visit to Yoshi’s would be the highlight of your trip.

(Nixon was our 37th president.)

When I read this blog entry about Google arrogance that Dan Gillmor posted  on Bayosphere  it made me think of a question I have been asking myself every time I drive by the Google headquarters in Mountain View. The Google headquarters is in the former Silicon Graphics building on Amphitheatre Parkway just down the street from Intuit. At each entrance to their parking they have a uniformed guard posted. The guard  checks cars as they drive into the parking lot. I wonder why their parking lot needs guards? Maybe there are other corporate headquarters building in Silicon Valley that have parking lot guards but I don’t know of any.

Friday night Duke and I went to a concert at the The Mountain Winery in Saratoga. The Mountain Winery is my favorite place for a concert. It has a relatively small seating area and beautiful setting under the stars with the winery in the background. Whenever we go to a concert there we always have a picnic first in the parking lot overlooking the Santa Clara Valley. If you haven’t experienced a concert at the Mountain Winery you should definitely make a point of going there when you are in the San Francisco Bay area.
We saw  Stanley Clarke – Bela Fleck – Jean-Luc Ponty. who are doing a summer concert tour called Trio. All three musicians were exceptional.  Bassist Stanley Clarke makes the bass into a solo instrument.   Jazz
violinist Jean-Luc Ponty made the violin sound like about three or four instruments playing at one time and  banjo player Bela Fleck made the banjo seem like an instrument made for Jazz. When they played together the strength and power of the music took your breath away. This was one of the best concerts I have been to in a long time.

Last night we went to see Jonny Lang at Villa Montalvo   His singing and guitar playing were exceptional. The power  and energy came through to make it a great concert. He was billed as a "once in a generation blues talent" and I would have to agree. If you ever get the chance to see a concert of his I would highly recommend it. And he is only 24. His debut album came out when he was 16.  I felt like we got to experience something very special. And Villa Montalvo is wonderful outdoor setting.