"This is a hangout," Cindy Cosco told the Sonoma Index-Tribune as she got ready to close Passaggio Wines for good. "That's what hurts me the most." Her tasting room sat at the southwest corner of Jack London Village in Glen Ellen and had bands on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The paper reported that Sunday, Oct. 25, was set as the closing day, with The Northern Still booked for the last show.
That closing made Passaggio the fourth music room in Sonoma Valley to go dark this year. The Friday jazz that used to play off the Plaza had a new home within about two weeks, but the Glen Ellen weekend shows have none. The jazz has a 37-year-old organization booking it as a series. The weekend shows were run out of the tasting room itself.
The Four Rooms, and What Each One Carried
| Venue | Where | What it hosted | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starling Bar Sonoma | Sonoma | Bar with live music, open since April 2016 | Business and liquor license sold; last day March 30 |
| Sonoma Speakeasy | Sonoma | Live music venue | Closed temporarily in September; the owners have said it may reopen |
| Parkside Wine Bar | 5 E. Napa St. | Wine, beer, live music, monthly no-cover jazz | Closed Sept. 26 along with Oso Sonoma next door |
| Passaggio Wines | Jack London Village, Glen Ellen | Weekend afternoon bands | Closing set for Oct. 25 |
According to the Index-Tribune's Oct. 16 report, the Speakeasy is the only one of these whose owners have talked about reopening.
The reasons owners gave were about money. At Oso and Parkside, chef David Bush told the Index-Tribune that the kitchen and building badly needed upgrades, and "it was too costly to spend the money on a building we don't own." Cosco told the same paper that people are "not drinking as much as pre-COVID days." She also pointed to the competition a wine bottle now faces from non-alcoholic drinks, canned cocktails and craft beer. A bar stage only works if the drinks pay for the band. When people drink less, the music is easy to cut.
How the Friday Jazz Moved So Fast
Parkside only became a music room in 2025. That year Sonoma's Planning Commission approved Kelley Bush's appeal to add beer and live entertainment, with live music three or more times a week. Parkside then partnered with the Sonoma Valley Jazz Society for no-cover shows one Saturday a month. The Index-Tribune's Oct. 2 column explains that the Jazz Society, which has been producing live jazz in the Valley for 37 years, was the group scheduling the acts at Parkside.
That is why the series survived. The Jazz Society was the one booking the musicians, so when Parkside closed, the society only had to find another room. It found one in the old fire station on the same block. On its Gehricke Winery page, the Jazz Society says weekly jazz "has officially moved from Parkside to Gehricke Winery at 32 Patton Street," at the corner of Broadway, every Friday. The column gave Oct. 9 as the first night and a 7 p.m. start. The society's own page now lists 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. with no cover, so check that page before you head out.
One Parkside plan has not found a new home yet. The Jazz Society had been planning scholarships so Sonoma State University jazz studies students could play there in a new artist-in-residence program. "The closing of Parkside Wine Bar is a blow to students and musicians," society president Janice King told the Index-Tribune. She said she was looking at other venues around the Plaza. No new venue for the student series has been announced.
Why the Glen Ellen Weekends Had Nowhere to Go
Passaggio's music grew out of the room itself. Cosco and her team, Carole Martinson and Jan Leighliter, booked local acts. The shows started on Saturdays and "got to be so popular we added Sundays," she told the Index-Tribune. Bands that played there regularly included The Fabulous O'Hara Brothers and The Cork Pullers.
The wine labels poured in that room will move to other tasting rooms. The paper wrote that the live music "seems to have no new home." The music was run by the tasting room's own team, so when the room closed, the series closed with it. The bands are still playing, but Glen Ellen no longer has a regular weekend room for them.
Where the Calendar Is Fullest This November and December
The busiest remaining calendars follow the same pattern. Most of the dated shows below come from organizations that program a season and use more than one room.
- Sunday, Nov. 1. Kenny Washington with the Sonoma Valley Jazz Society at the Sebastiani Theatre, 476 1st St. E.
- Saturday, Nov. 7, 4 p.m. "Easy to Love," part of Music in Place's Sonoma CRU series, at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, 551 Broadway.
- Saturday, Nov. 14, 4 p.m. "Bel Canto" at Haraszthy Villa, Bartholomew Estate, 1695 Castle Road.
- Sunday, Nov. 15. Garrison Starr at the Sebastiani.
- Friday, Nov. 20. Poi Dog Pondering at the Sebastiani.
- Sunday, Nov. 29. Larry Vuckovich with Jackie Ryan, a Jazz Society show at the Sebastiani.
- Sunday, Dec. 6, 7 p.m. Duke Ellington's "Harlem Nutcracker" from Music in Place, at the Sebastiani.
- Saturday, Dec. 12, 4 p.m. "Candlelight Holiday Classics" at Haraszthy Villa.
- Saturday, Dec. 19. "Soulful Sounds of the Season" at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art.
Music in Place runs Sonoma CRU as a fall series held at a museum, a historic villa and a theater. The Jazz Society works the same way. It runs the Friday nights at Gehricke and also books its own shows at the Sebastiani. A series that already uses several venues is in a much better position when one of them closes.
The Bar Stages Still Running Most Weeks
The bar stages that remain are still where you can hear music on an ordinary weeknight.
Murphy's Irish Pub, 464 1st St. E., is the busiest of them. Murphy's advertises live music several nights a week, with an open mic on Mondays and karaoke on the first Tuesday of the month. November on the pub's events calendar includes:
- Bazmoto on Nov. 6
- Atomic Kitten on Nov. 14
- Magic Band on Nov. 27
- Dick Conte on Nov. 29
Murphy's and the Sebastiani sit side by side on First Street East, so you can have dinner and a pub set on the same block as the theater.
HopMonk Sonoma still runs open mics on Wednesdays, according to the Index-Tribune's Sound Check for Oct. 9–18.
Winery and Glen Ellen stages also showed up in October. The Sound Check for Oct. 16–25 listed live music at Glen Ellen Gathering Space, BR Cohn, Little Family Vineyards and Roche Winery, along with Murphy's. These rooms post their schedules a week or two ahead, so check the weekly Sound Check column for their later dates.
Each of these stages depends on the same thing Parkside and Passaggio depended on, which is people buying something while the band plays. The Index-Tribune's music writer said it plainly in the Passaggio piece: "keep going out. Keep spending money. Keep tipping the wait staff and keep tipping the bands." On a Friday, that can mean a glass of Gehricke wine while the jazz plays from 5:30 to 7:30.
At Aspira Realty, we pay attention to the small rooms that make Sonoma Valley feel like home, and we'd love to hear which local stage you'd add to this list. If you're thinking about where your family wants to spend the next stretch of Friday nights, book a consultation with our team and we'll share what we know about the Valley, block by block.
