We managed to live the plan! First stop, in the rain, was  Max where we got our wrist bands. Things are not working out as expected. This was to be a 6:15 show with Igor Butman, saxophone, and we figured by 4 we would be plenty early. NOT! We got wrist bands for the second group to be admitted at 5:50. While hanging in the drizzle we decided to get into the entry line for our wristband and wait there with friends, long time and brand new “line friends.” the time flew and soon we had front row seats right in the center of the hall, any closer and Igor would have been dripping on us. I cannot express all the superlatives of hearing this smaller group – quintet. Each performer was wonderful and the pianist, a young blind man, was incredible. He also sang beautifully in Russian and unaccented English. Butman is one of the best saxophone players we’ve heard playing both Tenor and Soprano Sax. And then it was over. . .

It had run late so we scrambled over to Lutheran Church to hear Eivor. Our plan was to stay for a couple of numbers and move on, but we took seats in the front row, center (a pattern?) and there we were transfixed. Her vocal range goes way up almost beyond where I can hear. Her control and dynamic range are gorgeous and her use of guitar, Faeroe Island drum and electronics were all well balanced. She told a story about her first trip to Jazz Fest and finding House of Guitars where she bought her first electric guitar which she was playing. And then she went there again the day of the performance and bought a new guitar which she said she had not played other than in the store and proceeded to play a number on it. We stayed right through the encore. And then it was over and time to move on. . .

To Kilbourn Hall where Billy Child’s Quartet was performing. To our total shock we were able to walk in 10 minutes before the show and get decent seats. Rain and time had reduced the audience some. There was some initial fiddling around as the drummer left the stage looking for something, then came back out and asked if someone in the audience had a drum key. Sure enough, John Beck, retired professor of percussion, sitting a row behind us stood up and walked down to the stage with his ever present drum key in hand. The show went on and I would advise if you want to read a great review of the performance read this, I can’t do it any better. Be sure to read about the saxophone player, is there another pattern here. And there was an encore and it was over. . .

The line outside Max at 10:10 meant there was no likelihood of getting to see Butman again so we moved on the the Big Tent where Huntertones were busy keeping the audience in an up tempo mood. They are a quintet including sax and trombone. We stayed through the encore, the sound level was fine, a quirk given this venue’s notoriety for pain inducing decibel levels. And it was over for the night, except after dropping Carol off at the apartment I went on  to the Jam and enjoyed some real jam session jazz and a unique experience of a French Horn in the jam. And I was exhausted and went home to sleep.

As I write Avi, our youngest grandson is on his way from LA to Rochester, I think I may have mentioned this a time or two. He decided, without any word from us, that the Sax was a better choice than the Clarinet even though it is more to drag. Great choice. We will pick him up sometime near 6 PM and drop his stuff in the apartment then head for Jazz Street. We need to buy him some XRIJF apparel, and show him the venues. Our plan is to take in the Adam Kolker Trio at The Little and maybe Red Hook at the Big Tent – both are Sax groups. If he has the stamina, it will be on to the Jam so he can get the lay of the land.

For any new readers; XRIJF is Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival. It runs for 9 nights and includes free concerts on the streets, main stage events in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater and concerts in 11 (that’s eleven) venues within a brisk 10 minute walk. For more information go to http://www.rochesterjazz.com/ Carol and I have 9 night Club Passes giving us access to all the venues for the duration. In past years we have averaged about 6 shows a night, which means leaving a few after just one or two numbers.

So Day 1: It started out dripping and threatening to rain hard as we walked from our apartment the few blocks to the hub of the Festival on Jazz Street – Gibbs Street 356 days of the year. We stopped by Kilbourn Hall to pick up wrist bands showing we had our place in line reserved and went out to wander the streets to see who was about. I don’t think I can detail all the people we saw. It is amazing, within 30 minutes we had sat and chatted with a classmate, Susie Plunkett, who we go back to kindergarten at 23 school with and with people we had stood in line with two years ago. Somehow we only got to 3 shows, but they were marvelous and we just couldn’t bring ourselves to walk out to get to something else. we started in Kilbourn with Tierney Sutton Band. They are a very tight group and she has a very powerful voice and has a great variety of styles. Loved her scat and her performance of a number from West Side Story was breath taking, both in her fidelity to the original and the emotion and power she brought to it.

We stayed on for her encore and then hoofed it around the corner to Hatch Recital hall for  Roberta Pickett on solo piano. The sound in Hatch is marvelous and she filled it with a varied program of standards and work she has arranged from settings that were never intended for solo piano. We were transfixed, sitting in the second row 2 in from the left aisle. Again we stayed on through her encore before moving on.

By now it was almost 9 PM – where was this evening going – and we hadn’t eaten anything yet. We wanted to hear Barbra Lica and her group at Max at 10 and the line was already forming. We set our chairs in the line and took turns going to get some food. I ate in the line and as we filed into the hall I found Carol with her dinner already in the hall. We joined a couple we had sat next to in Montage two years ago at a central table. They remembered us – Carol’s hair certainly is memorable and we them. Lica’s group are Canadian which they were sure to let us know and this is their first appearance at XRIJF. They were thrilled to be here and we were delighted they were too. She has a distinctive style and a breathy almost little girl voice. Her group are really solid and provide superb support. they are playing again tonight at Montage and anyone who missed them ought to consider listening to at least a number or two. Unusual for a 10 PM show at Max the crowd did not diminish as the the closing hour approached. Everyone seemed determined to hear it all.

Not quite the last show: We walked in the growing drizzle back to our apartment to drop off the chairs and the bags and walk across the street to the Radisson, the new home for Jazz Fest musicians and the Jam Session. The Hall is certainly bigger and more open than the club at the former Plaza. It is almost too comfortable. There was no sense on being on top of each other and clawing for space at the bar. It was quieter so we could even hear the music. I remain to be convinced that it will be a better experience.

Tonight: Our list for tonight includes Billy Child’s Quartet at Kilbourn; Eivor at Lutheran Church (she is gorgeous); Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet at Xerox Aud and Igor Butman Quartet at Max. Watch this space for the next report.

June 21,53 years ago my beautiful bride and I left Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester NY, newly married, on our way to London. That trip set the tempo for the life to follow. We toured England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and France for five weeks. We boarded HMS Queen Mary in Cherbourg and spent the last 5 days of the fairyland adventure crossing the North Atlantic. Although we slowed our travel tempo a bit as work and children required us to stay put, we continued to travel when possible. Carol was pregnant with Joel (known today as Yechiel) in February of 1966 when I had my new MBA Diploma in hand and we set off for a week in Bermuda.

And the travel has continued. When the kids were small we went on a family trip every Christmas Break with the entire family. Eventually the count got to 11 with my sister’s 3 and our two and our parents leading the way. We also traveled without the boys and Carol’s parents were always ready to move in and watch over them. Trips to Israel became a regular happening starting in 1971,  but we didn’t venture to other places very much. Italy in 1981. I cannot recall many of the trips in the late 1980’s and 90’s I would need to dig out old passports for records.

When Carol started teaching we decided that the best mid winter vacations would be to Latin America where it would be warm and jet lag would be minimal. Records of some of our travel can be found at my website goldberg-online.net In 2012 we started traveling with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) with a trip to Tanzania. We just returned from our eighth trip with them.

Roaming the continent is our passion. Without both of us loving the wandering life style it wouldn’t be possible. We love being in each other’s company and although it is always wonderful to make new friends around a campfire, across a dining room table or just sitting outside relaxing, we are good to be just us for an evening or a week.

Newfoundland here we come! (right after Jazz Fest starting on Friday night)

Some time back we had a self imposed encounter with some rocks and dirt that caused some damage to four compartment doors. For brevity’s sake lets just say I was willful and refused to listen to good advice, from Carol. None of you have ever done that have you? I messed up four compartment doors, three need to be replaced. John, at Colton RV, was not terribly sympathetic, but he was glad to order the three doors and prepare to paint all four. Met with him today and saw again his ever present smile and can do attitude. Have also scheduled routine service and some minor stuff with firm instructions that whatever is not fixed by July 6 will wait until September. We must be at the airport in Newark on the 8th to pick up Corey. It is a house of cards from then on.
A brief recap of the summer’s plan. Avi spends three days of Jazz Festival with us in Rochester. On July 7 we head for NYC (actually Jersey City, but what’s the difference) and pick up Corey before attending an unveiling for Carol’s brother Arthur. After a full Manhattan day with Corey we set off for Cape Cod and a visit with my sister Sandy for 4 days, On our way north we will spend some time in Boston – Freedom Trail with Corey – before putting him on a plane back to his parents. Onward from there to a Ferry from N Sidney NS to Newfoundland and three weeks of touring there before catching a ferry back to NS and begin a drive back to Rochester. Arrival is open. Departure is open, sometime After September 30. That is already too much schedule for our lives!

Returning to today or rather a few days ago, or was it even this year that we were in Central Asia with the very sterile, unoccupied Ashgabad

Really getting in to baking bread

The bread adhering to the side of the oven

Us looking down into Registans the large courtyard in Bukhara

Can’t resist a picture of Thelma, we celebrated her 94th birthday during the trip

A street scene of Mausoleums

Just something a little different, rock crawling outside Bukhara

The tomb of Tamerlane, know in these parts as Amer Timor (Timor the Lame was an appellation of those who hated him)

The Registrans at night lit for tourists  I will add more pictures later, but dinner time approaches. We returned to the coach to find the electrical system in disarray. The power was out, the refrigerator would not start and the solar system 40 amp fuse was blown, taking with it the fuse holder. A call to a local mobile RV place Athena Caochwork, at 3 PM on a Saturday resulted in the appearance of  tech at 7:45 with parts in hand, based on my description of the failure and one failure code. By 8:30 he was on his way and the refrigerator was busy cooling off! Whew! The next day the Lodge had its annual car show and I wandered through, still in a jet lag daze viewing Corvettes and Vintage Mustangs and many other interesting cars. Monday as planned we set out for Rochester. Three 350 mile days later here we are in North Tonawanda. We will take the car and head to Rochester mid morning.

Reentry into the USA was a no brainer for us. Traveling Business Class with Global Entry cards turned the expected hassle into a walk in the park. They looked at the phones but didn’t ask for passwords and basically we kept going at a walking pace right though all the security. OTOH getting though security to board the plan in Istanbul was a more of a hassle, mostly because we had to got through the same ritual three times! The flight On Turkish Air 777 was very comfortable in business. Plenty of room to stretch out and totally lay flat beds. Worth every penny.

Istanbul was a bit of a forspeice. If we hadn’t already been there.In the morning we wandered on our own into the gardens of Topkapi, which we had not seen in our previous trip. Later we went into the largest, oldest shopping mall where we were saved from buying anything by repeatedly asking where will we put it and who wants it. We did pass up some beautiful items but. . .

We are in Mansfield OH at a large campground on the outskirts sitting astride a lake. We have not ventured out as it is raining. and we are tired. This was day two from Kansas ‘city MO. One more day will put us in N Tonawanda where we will leave the coach for some service work and we will go on to the apartment in the Jeep.

We already have a day trip planned with Vic and Joyce, no driving for us! Just a gentle ride to Jerry and Barbara’s in Ithaca.

Thank you homeland security! I am getting ready to fly through Istanbul to the USA. Although our first stop is Istanbul with 24 hours layover, no one can tell us whether we are going to check through or have our baggage with us in Istanbul. Carry on is fine for an overnight, but if we are checking through, we must pack our cameras and computers now. To avoid issues with security I am going to post this and lock the computer away in my luggage with my camera. The memory cards for our cameras are in my carry on. The password for my phone has been changed to something obscene (but very obscured) for the benefit of the aforementioned homeland security. I am good to go!

When I am less rushed and annoyed, I will provide a more complete post about the whole trip. I must say this has been a wonderful adventure with a good group of fellow travelers. We look forward to future travel with Overseas Adventure Travel.

From the time I started reading about this trip the most exciting aspect was the long overland drive from Khujand to Dushanbe in Tajikistan.  This drive starts in the Ferghana Valley which is divided between Tajikistan, Uzbekistan an Kyrgyzstan. It is among the most fertile areas in the region. It narrows and eventually gives way to serious mountain passes with the road climbing to 9,000 feet and passing through two major tunnels and uncounted snow sheds before it descends to the southern valley with Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan at its foot. The notes in the itinerary are relatively brief calling for stops in Istaravshan to visit a couple of master craftsmen and the luncheon with the block print artist was cancelled because of Ramadan.

We visited a wooden comb maker and watched him make a comb from a block of wood:

Cutting the wood to dry for two years

Shaping the blank for the comb

Cutting the teeth

Even the decorations were added while we watched

 We bought a couple of combs for display, mine is a mustache comb!

The knife maker forging his blank from a leaf spring

Finished product I was not thrilled with the source of his metal stock.

 We did have a lovely lunch at the home of a tour leader who was not working at the moment.

 There were various stops along the road, these dried fruit and nut sellers had set up shop in a wide spot where the road did a 180 degree hairpin turn

 It was startling to come up on this herd as were were hurtling along the highway around a bed at 35 mph.

Just a picture stop. That snow is not usually present on June 5, but they had a lot last winter.

We got into Dushanbe in time to check in to our hotel, a marvel of modern, comfortable conveniences. The wifi here even gets the New York Times. Cannot understand why it wasn’t available in Khujand, the second largest city in Tajikistan and it is available in the capital.

There is no censorship in Tajikistan. NYTimes.com is not reachable here in Khujand Tajikistan, neither is npr.org. I am writing this from blogger.com but I cannot read the post I sent from Samarkand. I’m not sure I will be able to publish this when I am done.

We made the drive from Samarkand in the lovely bus we had been traveling in all week. After two hours on typical Uzbekistan roads, miserable, we reached the border with Tajikistan where we had to put up with over zealous exit routines and then pull our bags over 300 meters of no-man’s land to the welcoming Tajikistan entry post. Having cleared that and another 100 meters of  bad driveway we boarded what may be the worst bus we have ever experienced. The legroom is nonexistent, the fabric is disintegrating the microphone system works and doesn’t work at random and I thought I heard the clutch slipping when climbing a slight grade. And we need an external step to reach the first step in the door. The emergency exit door in the rear is a good 5 feet above the ground with no assist. Just bad! Tomorrow we are promised a smaller more comfortable bus capable of taking us over the mountains to Dushanbe. There a a couple of high passes to cross.

We are in an area that has seen little tourism and it shows wherever we go. To add to the interesting times, it is Ramadan, so restaurants have to open early to accommodate us and even those that do usually serve alcohol have not been offering it.  This is a Muslim majority nation but the state is not Muslim and many people clearly are not observing Ramadan fast.

I can post pictures of mausoleums and unused mosques, but they are of limited interest. The one mausoleum we go into was supposed to be closed to us. As we got there the door was partly open and we were invited to remove our shoes and go into the entry area, but explicitly told not to enter the holy area of the tombs. As we stood about taking pictures [now I cannot add pictures] a couple of ladies left and all of a sudden we were welcomed into the inner sanctum. After the tour and explanation as we put on our shoes and turned to leave the caretaker came out and locked up the building.

We went to lunch and returned to then hotel to freshen up before seeing some local embroidery with opportunity to purchase. Watch for another new cap to appear someplace, someday 🙂

100 years or so after Genghis Kahn rolled over the west extending his empire a new face appeared with the objective of becoming Kahn or ruler of the world. His name was Timor and his title was Amir, much lower than Kahn. Ultimately he ruled much of Central Asia. During one of his many campaigns he suffered an injury to a leg leaving him lame. He became known and hated in the west by the name Tamerlane – Timor the Lame. He based his kingdom from Samarkand and here we find buried his wives in a magnificent array of tombs

and himself and his grandson, Ulugbek, among others in yet another grand mausoleum, just across a small park from our hotel.

Mirzo Ulugbek was an astronomer and scientist who built a huge observatory to measure the length of the year – he got within 2 seconds of current understanding. He wrote a star atlas detailing 1180 stars as well. He also was destined to take over as Kahn after his grandfather, but his son had him beheaded so he could rule. The son’s rule lasted 40 days.

Mirzo Ulugbek

Astrolabe

The bottom third of the Observatory

The actual surviving track used for observations There is much more history in Samarkand and much of what we see today are reconstructions from the Soviet era. They were determined to preserve the local history while destroying the economy, go figure. We visited the Registan, central courtyard surrounded on three sides by Madrasas. It is hard to grasp the size of this space and these buildings.  If you look at the face of the arch on the right you will see a speck, this is a closeup of the worker cleaning the face of the Madrasa. We ended up wearing some of the dirt he was removing as we stood beneath is work area. Muslims do not generally make representations of people or animals. A close look at these figures from the top of the arch reveals that  the animals are not representations of real animals and the “human” face is so distorted as to not violate the letter of the law. Although I have written here about Samarkand, it is ion the past and tonight we wrap up two days in Tashkent with a farewell dinner to those who do not continue on to Dushanbe in Tajikistan tomorrow.

Finally a hotel with a decent internet connection and five minutes to call my own. I will eventually write about Ashkhabad, Nukus, Khiva, and Bukhara. Here are just a few pictures from each:

Ashgabat – Turkmenistan:

Bridegroom waiting to get married

The Bride

The Wedding Palace first color phase

Nukus – Museum of Avant-Garde Art – Uzbekistan

Khiva – Uzbekistan

Map of Old City with Sasha our OAT Tour Leader

The reason for this trip!

I am out of time and there is so much more, I will post this now and update and add later!