You must have confidence in your palate to judge and rate wine, whether on a panel or for a magazine. But it would be interesting to have that discussion with him, and I think he's missing out by not having it. I don't know which way Robert Parker would have gone, had he sat on the panel with us. Ultimately the statisticians will sort it out. What differed was our standard: I rewarded pleasure, while my neighbors punished simplicity. I don't think I was "right" on the Cavas. I have this kind of interaction every time I judge wine: people with good palates and knowledge who simply disagree. They gave the same reason: They preferred its complexity, whereas I thought the wine was interesting but unpleasant. The two judges next to me, from Portugal and Belgium, gave no medals to the first 10 wines, and gave only the last one a silver medal. I gave 4 golds and 6 silvers, with only the last wine, an older wine, getting no medal from me. They were mostly fruit-driven, simple but pleasant wines. Something I marvel at every year is how different not only are our opinions, but our standards and expectations.Įxample: This year my panel got a flight of 11 Cavas. More than 8,000 wines were entered, which meant more than 300 judges were needed.Įvery one of these judges is a wine expert: wine brokers, critics, enology professors. All VIP tickets reserve the option to bring in chairs.I just spent three days as a judge at the world's largest wine competition, the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles. **General Admission tickets are subject to venue Chair Policy. **All sales are final, no refunds available after purchase.
It was at this time that the group absorbed musicians like Robert “Sput” Searight (drums), Shaun Martin (keyboards), and Bobby Sparks (keyboards), and were heavily influenced by legendary keyboardist Bernard Wright (Miles Davis, Chaka Khan, Marcus Miller).ĪRTIST WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE Three years later, a serendipitous intersection with the Dallas gospel and R&B community in Dallas transformed the music into something funkier, more direct, and more visceral. The band was formed by bassist and primary composer Michael League in 2003, starting inconspicuously enough as a group of college friends at the University of North Texas’ Jazz Studies program. But more than the cultural diversity of the individual players, the defining characteristic of Snarky Puppy’s music is the joy of performing together in the perpetual push to grow creatively. Japan, Argentina, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico all have representation in the group’s membership. At its core, the band represents the convergence of both black and white American music culture with various accents from around the world. They each maintain busy schedules as sidemen (with such artists as Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg, and D’Angelo), producers (for Kirk Franklin, David Crosby, and Salif Keïta), and solo artists (many of whom are on the band’s indy label, GroundUP Music). Snarky Puppy is a collective of sorts with as many as 25 members in regular rotation. It’s probably best to take Nate Chinen of the New York Times’ advice, as stated in an online discussion about the group, to “take them for what they are, rather than judge them for what they’re not.”
It’s not a fusion band, and it’s definitely not a jam band. But as the category names for all three of the band’s Grammy® awards would indicate (Best R&B Performance in 2014, Best Contemporary Instrumental Album in 20), Snarky Puppy isn’t exactly a jazz band. The last four years have brought dramatic changes for Snarky Puppy.Īfter a decade of relentless touring and recording in all but complete obscurity, the Texas-bred/New York-based quasi-collective suddenly found itself held up by the press and public as one of the major figures in the jazz world.
“Maybe you didn’t notice, but this is Snarky Puppy’s world, and the rest of us only live in it.” – The New York Times