A beautiful Sunday took us to the beach just north of Half Moon Bay, to hear Tierney Sutton sing at the Bach Dynamite and Dancing Society. Her theme was “love.” To open the show, Tierney sang a song from her “Blue” album, which featured Joni Mitchell songs. She playfully combined the standard “April in Paris” with Joni’s “Free Man in Paris.” Later in the show, Tierney gave a tour-de-force performance of the Dry Cleaner from Des Moines, a Joni Mitchell song with a ton of very fast, very complex lyrics....

Singing their original “I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it,” the gruffy gang from north, north Portola Valley won over the overheated Palooza crowd. Billie Steve “Spock” Dusse took center stage and played to the camera, so earns the most mug shots in the gallery. At this point, I guess I am Whiskey Hillbillies groupie, ‘cause they are always good fun. So follow them on Facebook and check out a show....

Live from Berkeley, it’s Trombone Micah! An evening drive up to Berkeley took me to the California Jazz Conservancy, where Micah has been taking an evening class and playing jazz. The group played a set with three tunes: Four (Miles Davis) Anthropology (Charlie Parker) Nutville (Horace Silver) The music was joyful, challenging, and uptempo. Interestingly, the group’s teacher, Dave LeFebre, was also my jazz teacher when I was a grad student at Berkeley, decades ago....

The Roschelle family happily converged at Morningside Heights to celebrate Micah’s commencement from Columbia University. He actually graduated two years ago, in May 2020. But that was the year of coming home for spring break and never returning to New York to finish senior year. So it was great to finally have a full on celebration two years later. My mother, Alice, has a master’s degree from Columbia, making it a multi-generational roar of the Columbia lion....

Audrey and I created some impromptu posters, hopped on the #54 bus, and joined the Washington DC Women’s March. We were protesting the Supreme Court’s draft decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Lots of people asked to take a photo of Audrey’s poster: “if men could get pregnant, abortions would be available at ATMs.” The weather was misty, but warm, so we didn’t mind getting wet. The rally started on a lawn just below the Washington Monument....