Articles by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Sipping and Swinging into Summer

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Dear All About Jazzers, Welcome back to your quarterly wine and song pairing, Jazz & Juice, which I hope inspires you to taste and listen with more delight. This trio of wine and song is poised to bring you into the festival season --let me know if any of these bottles find their way into your picnic baskets! If you'd like to get the pairing sent to your inbox every-other-Friday, I invite you to join a ...
Continue ReadingTracks and Tipples to End the Winter

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Dear All About Jazzers, Kristen here, your singer/songwriter/sommelier. I'm thrilled to be sharing my wine and song pairing, Jazz & Juice, with you once more. What started during the pandemic as a deep-dive series has now become a bi-weekly, two minute meditation on the pleasures of both music and wine, meant to be enjoyed at the pace of life. Here are three entries from the past months for you to enjoy. If you'd like to get ...
Continue ReadingLew Tabackin: On Becoming and Barolo

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
"You looking for Lew?" a waiter standing outside Gennaro, a homey Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side, asks as I scan the outdoor dining area for a sign of my interview subject for the evening. He's inside." They definitely know him here. Ushered into the dining room, the staff graciously points me towards a table in the back, where Lew Tabackin, comfortably ensconced at a corner table with a promising bottle from his cellar, is ready for ...
Continue ReadingEffervescence: Art Tatum Meets Champagne

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Join Kristen in a conversation about what makes bubbles so, how no talent is ever undisputed, and how to marvel at the one man show that is the legendary Art Tatum, featuring Champagne by Ployez-Jaquemart and Tatum's rendition of Night and Day" by Cole Porter. ...
Continue ReadingEffervescence: Art Tatum Meets Champagne

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
This edition of Jazz & Juice comes with a warning: both the bottle featured and the musician spotlighted are explosive, and should be handled with care. Uncork and listen responsibly. Effervescence When something sparkles, literally or figuratively, it bursts with life. In liquid, there is a perpetual motion of bubbles escaping in a dazzling show of speed within a seemingly static glass. When we listen to effervescent music, we experience something that lifts us in delight and velocity ...
Continue ReadingTransparency: Ben Webster Meets Pinot Noir

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Explore how the transparency of sound and of a grape can create transcendent effects. Kristen takes some detours in zen instruments, Kansas City jazz and the surprising 23andMe results for Pinot Noir... ...
Continue ReadingTransparency: Pinot Noir Meets Ben Webster

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Welcome back to Jazz & Juiceafter last month's venture into the opulent, it's a perfect time to venture into the idea of less being more. Transparency When something is transparent, we see beyond it. In a way, transparency gives us another dimension of appreciation; we not only experience the object or the work that we are seeing through, but also what is behind it. Seeing, or hearing, through something means experiencing its causes and influences, whether that be ...
Continue ReadingOpulence: Grenache Blanc Meets Sarah Vaughan

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Join Kristen for an exploration of opulence through a white Priorat and Sarah Vaughan's later work with the Count Basie Orchestra, discovering what makes something 'extra' in just the right way. ...
Continue ReadingOpulence: Grenache Blanc Meets Sarah Vaughan

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Welcome to 2022's first Jazz & Juice--I'm excited to journey with you into the realm of wine and song in this new year! I think you'll enjoy this month's hedonistic theme no matter what you've resolved for the new year. Opulence Opulence brings to mind abundance, ornamentation, wealth and, well, muchness. A profusion or abundance of something can hazard gratuitousness, yet it also may lead to the delightfully decadent. Opulence brings us past the point of necessity and ...
Continue ReadingRiesling Meets Eric Dolphy

by Kristen Lee Sergeant
Join Kristen and special guest Ted Nash for an exploration of tension and rule breaking through a great German riesling paired with one Eric Dolphy's Something Sweet, Something Tender." ...
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