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Alan’s View

April 2009

ASD Picks: 3 Best Jazz Fests

The jazz festival season is upon us, unofficially launched by one of the biggest and best: the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.  If you’ve got nothing to do next weekend, hop on a plane to “the Big Easy” and you’re certain to have one of the best times of your life.

Jazz fests have become ubiquitous—every Night+Day city has one, as do hundreds of other cities and towns. Unfortunately some, like New York’s, are threatened by the 2009 economy. (Of course, as George Wein, the promoter deemed the grandfather of jazz festivals, was quoted in the New York Times, “New York’s a jazz festival all year long.”)

There are two reasons for going to these festivals—jazz and fun.  Actually, it’s not so much jazz, because most so-called jazz festivals are loaded with blues and other musical genres. Many are little more than a series of concerts strung out over days or weeks, like going to the theater on five consecutive nights. In my view, the better ones have multiple performances going on simultaneously and continuously, so that the audience can pick and choose, and roam among them.  The very best (and the most fun) have the added feature of being in a great city and in a concentrated area, creating a party atmosphere, with so much going on that you are thoroughly immersed in the experience and exhausted at the end. Herewith are my three favorites outside of the Night+Day cities:

With its breadth of music offerings and unique atmosphere, it would be more aptly named the Montreal Music Festival and Street Party.

Montreux Jazz Festival—How does a jazz festival with relatively little jazz in a town with very little to do become one of the world’s best events?  The gorgeous setting on the shores of Lake Geneva helps, but it’s the intimacy of the venues, the wide range of performances among the 80-plus acts, and the world-class jam sessions until dawn that ultimately do the trick. It runs for two weeks in mid-July.

Nice Jazz Festival—That’s Nice, France! If you really need an excuse to go the French Riviera during the summer (God, I hope not), try this eight-day midsize event that brings thousands up the hill to the Romanesque ruins at Cimiez to wander among the three stages and food stalls.  Here, too, there’s a range of music (does Leonard Cohen count as jazz?), and the mid-July dates are a perfect time to do all things Riviera.

On the Road: Berkeley, San Francisco, and L.A.

Because we’re wrapping up work on the second edition of our San Francisco guide, my recent travels have been limited to quick stops in L.A. and Berkeley. Yes, the Berkeley across the bridge, which for San Franciscans is a huge trip. That can be the only explanation for my not having gone back to Chez Panisse in more than five years.

Restaurants and bars are indicators of how well the economy has been doing—aka trailing indicators. Just in case you missed the last six months, things have been pretty awful—and it shows. At the 9pm seating in the Chez Panisse restaurant, there were a few empty tables–mon Dieu! While there is a bit of a buzz in the upstairs Café at Chez Panisse, one doesn’t go to this restaurant for the scene. You go to experience the world’s most innovative holistic approach to delivering delicious food,

just as it was when Alice Waters, the mother of California cuisine, opened it in 1971. The carefully crafted ambience does create the feeling of dining in someone’s home (albeit a large home), but try to snag a table with a view of the open kitchen so you can see the action. The chefs meet midday to determine the menu based on that morning’s fish, meat, and produce delivery—it’s a set menu each day—and decide who is going to prepare what part of the meal. Unbelievable. The result is food that’s as fresh and organic as it gets, virtually no waste, and reasonable prices ($60 Mon, $75 Tue–Thu, $95 Fri–Sat).

A cabbie who works the nightlife shift in San Francisco told me things are the slowest they’ve been in over ten years. So I’m happy to report that recent visits to a few of our favorite places confirmed they are still packed, which really says something. Three feature a variation on the tapas bar concept along with a restaurant: Andalu (Mediterranean), in the Mission; Dosa on Fillmore (Indian), in lower Pacific Heights; and La Mar Cebicheria Peruana (Ceviche), on the Embarcadero. Two are fairly new and feature knockout settings: Gitane is almost otherworldly, with a cozy bar downstairs and a small restaurant upstairs (complemented by outdoor tables in good weather), decorated with chandeliers, mirrors, and touches that range from funky to fine; Waterbar focuses on fish, but you’ll focus on its on-the-bay-and-under-the-bridge view, which makes some of us think we’re back in New York.

Michael Mina may be spreading himself too thin, but he’s still managed to score with his new restaurant in L.A., XIV. The fact that he teamed up with Philippe Starck and Sam Nazarian doesn’t hurt either. Everything about XIV is outstanding: the food, design, service, bar scene, patio, and Mina’s truffled popcorn. And speaking of Starck, could he possibly compete with himself when it comes to designing an outrageous-but-makes-it-work hotel? Check out SLS at Beverly Hills. Although the hotel’s very hot and highly regarded Bazaar restaurant—by chef José Andrés—and its accompanying bar scene offer stiff competition, I’d still pick the interior design as the star of the show.

Note: All of the venues mentioned in L.A. and San Francisco are described more fully in our guidebooks or online.

Last Word: Bail Out Travel

If there is an upside to the financial crisis we’re experiencing, it is that, more than at any time since Watergate (or for the under-50 set, simply any time), the daily news has become more interesting than any soap opera. Although it’s a little different from watching John Dean testify at a Senate hearing about White House–sanctioned illegal break-ins, the current bombardment of the unimaginable—Madoff, retention bonuses, trillions thrown about, GM (I still don’t understand why Nader hasn’t bought that company), unemployment rates, my portfolio, and on and on—the “what’s next” quotient is pretty darn high. As I watch the drop in the value of my assets, I regularly have to ask myself: Is this a bad dream?

Luckily, I can turn to an old trick I learned to get a reality check, and I’ll share it with you. If you find yourself not sure whether you dreamed something or it really happened, stand up, put your hands under your arms, and flap. If you start to fly, it means you’re dreaming (and you really didn’t lose as much money as you thought)!

Needless to say, the travel business isn’t doing so well these days, and travel publishing is even worse. Unfortunately, my company has lost considerably less than a billion dollars, not to mention $10 billion—so I can’t qualify, as the CEOs of GM, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, and others have managed, to claim a $10 million bonus this year. That got me thinking, though: I could use a little of that TARP money. Why don’t I convert ASDavis Media Group (the parent of Night+Day’s publisher, Pulse Guides) into a bank? But after reading the fine print, I realized that it would cap the publisher's salary at $500,000, which could be a serious problem if the publisher actually thought he or she was worth as much as, say, a banker or stockbroker.  It would be like saying that teaching our kids is as important as trading options!

This led me to an even better and more public-spirited idea.  Let’s make travel one of the targeted areas for the financial recovery.  What this country needs, more than new roads and green cars that travel twice as fast with half the gas, is fun—and traveling is as fun as it gets. Every baby boomer had a goal of retiring around this time so they could travel—and then boom, there went the retirement!  Well, let’s make travel possible again by giving every adult a travel voucher—say, a thousand dollars. Imagine what this would do for the economy and for the nation’s psyche. Travel dollars generate spending, over and over again, as people dine out, stay at hotels, visit landmarks, go to clubs, shop. Even more important, travel dollars create experiences.. People collect memories, get together with family, discover new things (and buy travel books?). It’s a win-win. So join me in encouraging President Obama to go to Las Vegas to announce this brilliant plan.

Am I dreaming?

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