LocalLocal newsnews at your at your ngertips everyevery weekweek fingertips $1.00 JustJust $1!.00!
Greyounds sports Greyounds sports section teaser section teaser Sports,Sports, Page XPage X
at the newsstand at the newsstand
$1 at$1the at newsstand the newsstand
TheHealdsburg HealdsburgTribune Tribune The Enterprise & Scimitar Enterprise & Scimitar
Visit for daily updates on local news views www.healdsburgtribune.com for daily updates on local news andand views Our 160th year,Visit Number 4 www.healdsburgtribune.com Healdsburg, California
Our 155th year, Number 00© ur 155th year, Number 00©
THE CITY IN COLORS: BUILDING COALITIONS, DRAWING MAPS
Healdsburg, California Healdsburg, California
January 23, 2025 Date, Date, 20202020
Photo Courtesy the Montalvo Arts Center
ONGOING TRANSITION TO DISTRICTS GIVES MORE OPPORTUNITY TO COMMUNITY By Christian Kallen
The city-wide conversation about splitting Healdsburg into districts continued last week at a public workshop on Thursday, Jan. 16, at the Healdsburg Community Center (soon to officially become the Abel De Luna Community Center). With bilingual translation earphones and tablets to lend, the city was well prepared for the two-hour gettogether to further inform residents what that split into districts means, what it doesn’t mean and how to take part. It was a disappointment to some that the city’s presentation was essentially the third time around for an introduction by Redistricting Partners, the city’s consultant. Covered again were the reasons for the transition to district elections (threat of legal action to enforce the 2002 California Voting Rights Act), the option for district-elected council members and either an atlarge elected mayor or one selected by the council from among its members, and what criteria go into creating a district. For those who attended either or both of the past two City Council meetings, the first 20 minutes seemed quite familiar. “Based upon past city workshops, I was admittedly expecting a different kind of meeting: visuals on the walls, more interactive, people seated at tables working around large maps and identifying ‘communities of interest’ ➝ Ongoing Transition, 2
JAZZ GAZE One of a wave of brilliant Latin American musicians that has transformed the U.S. jazz scene in recent decades, Edward Simon will open the
inaugural Healdsburg Jazz Winter Festival on Jan. 30.
The Jazz Town by the River HEALDSBURG JAZZ BRINGS SUMMER VIBE TO WINTER FESTIVAL By Christian Kallen
The Healdsburg Jazz Festival, embedded in the fabric of Healdsburg’s musical identity since before the turn of the millennium, has long attempted to emphasize that it’s not just a summer festival but a year-round one. As well as occasional concerts at local theaters or wineries, the organization lines up weekly jazz combos at the Hotel Healdsburg’s Spirit Bar, and has a robust youth education program as well. But that 10-days-in-June, 26-year-old Healdsburg Jazz Festival has a magnetic hold all the same. Expanding beyond the “festival” identity has always been the challenge, so much so that the organization has made an effort to brand itself “Healdsburg Jazz,” dropping the Festival from its name (healdsburgjazz.org).
The latest effort is an upcoming four-day, sixshow event at a variety of venues both indoors and out in midwinter Healdsburg. It’s been optimistically dubbed the Healdsburg Winter Jazz Festival. The nonprofit’s current executive director, Gayle Okumura Sullivan, pitched the idea of a winter festival to balance the June event. Rather than an extravagant week-plus series of concerts large and small at restaurants, wineries and stages throughout north county, the inaugural Healdsburg Jazz Winter Fest consists of just four curated days of jazz at more intimate places in town. “The idea came from Gayle, our executive director, because we had been for years trying to create a year-round concert and programming format,” said Marcus Shelby, the dynamic musical director of the organization, who helped line up the talent for the mini-fest. “ I t ’s t a k i n g t h e opportunity of concert
performances and bringing in national and local artists for four days, sort of an action-packed four evenings of music,” he added with a laugh.
Concerts Daily
T he Healdsburg Jazz Winter Festival runs from Thursday, Jan. 30, to Sunday, Feb. 2, with shows at the Paul Mahder Gallery, Spoonbar, Montage, the Michel-Schlumberger winery—even St. Paul’s Catholic Church, where Stella Heath’s tribute to Ella Fitzgerald will take place Saturday afternoon. (Heath performs locally year-round, but this Feb. 1 show is already sold out.) At the other extreme, the finale with MacArthur Genius Award-winner Jason Moran will be a salute-toDuke Ellington concert, to be held at Montage Healdsburg’s expansive ballroom, which will be dressed to the nines for this Sunday, Feb. 2, 7pm show. (Moran and Marcus Shelby’s orchestra will combine talents in another Ellington tribute at
MEET MELLA, STELLA’S IDENTICAL PUP CLONES IN WINEMAKING USUALLY MEAN SOMETHING DIFFERENT By Chrisitan Kallen
Photo by Rick Tang
ALL SMILES Nine-week-old Mella, an exact genetic clone of
the Flambeaux winery dog, Stella, eagerly awaits a treat.
It’s not easy finding Flambeaux Wine, despite its “flamboyant” name. One small AVA sign points down a drive off Jack Pine Road, itself a detour off West Dry Creek. If the drive and entrance are unadorned, the same can’t be said of the hilltop winery overlooking
SFJazz the following weekend, Feb. 6-9.) Bringing music to town that jazz fans want to hear is one reason for the midwinter festival, but there’s another purpose as well: keeping its sponsors happy. Especially the Piazza Hospitality group, whose hotels have played such a key role in Healdsburg Jazz’s success since the beginning. “We heard feedback from attendees, musicians and our partners like the Hotel Healdsburg/h2hotel, Montage and wineries,” Sullivan said. “If we can bring joy and live music to Healdsburg in the heart of the off-season winter months, we thought we should do it.” Circe Sher, co-owner of Piazza, said, “We already have guests planning to attend, and it’s a great time of year to bring some musical energy to town.”
Spoonbar
Though not participating directly in this winter’s festival, Hotel Healdsburg does benefit weekly from the jazz programming in
the valley, with St. Helena bold on the horizon. Only in such a landscape can the overbuilt seem to scale. The winery itself was not the attraction, nor the growing popularity of its Alexander Valley cabernet or Dry Creek zinfandel. Instead, the tantalizing hint of a deeper kind of fulfillment beckoned: that of eternal life, if not for us then for our pets. Stella is a popular winery dog, as winery dogs go: She was voted as the Best Winery Dog in the Tribune’s most recent “Best of Healdsburg,” which in Sonoma County is saying something. Some wine dogs are buoyant and playful, some somber and judgmental. Stella—a purebred Maremma sheepdog, from Tuscany or Abruzzo—is somewhere in between: quiet, but with a powerful reserved force that even gives coyotes pause, according to Flambeaux owner Art Murray.
the Spirit Bar (including the Winter Fest Saturday, when the Susan Sutton Trio will play). Only one of the Piazza Hospitality venues is being called into duty this time—the Spoonbar’s Green Room, on the ground floor of H2Hotel. In many ways, though, the Friday concerts (there are two, at 6pm and 8pm) will be the centerpiece of this inaugural festival showcasing the vocal genius of Paula West. Performing with the semilegendary vocalist will be Adam Shulman (piano), Aaron Germain (bass) and Leon Joyce Jr. (drums), who will join her in exploring her current repertoire of material—an intriguing one, to say the least, in that it includes works by Sonny Bono, Jimmy Webb and the Rolling Stones. “At this time of political upheaval and division, Paula West looks back to these uniquely American expressions of passion and protest with humor, swing, and romance – showing ➝ Healdsburg Jazz, 6
Stella is snow white, her eyes, lips and nose black against the thick fur. She is also very clean: Not all sheepdogs are so well-kept. But Flambeaux Wine has high standards—visits are by appointment only, and customers are likely staying at the Montage or Madrona. Which, by no coincidence, is where playful young Mella was introduced to the world last week, in a pair of meet-and-greets to give wine- and dog-lovers, and wine-dog lovers, a chance to see for themselves the next phase in pet appreciation.
Unicorn of a Dog?
Now when most winemakers talk about “clones,” they’re talking about varietals selected for specific qualities, such as flavor, color or intensity. The Dijon clones of pinot noir or chardonnay are well known; but ➝ Meet Mella, 7