56th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival

56th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival - A pictorial review

There's nothing like the Monterey Jazz Festival. To begin with, it's truly a Jazz Festival. A few years ago, Branford Marsalis told the festival audience just how luck they were. As Marsalis put it, "...there is more jazz, than non-jazz, than any other festival in the world". Here, the legends of the music oar honored, the rising stars are recognized, and the emerging new artists are introduced to the jazz world at large.

Over the next couple weeks,the "Faces of Jazz" pieces will highlight the images from this year's festival, along with mini reviews of the performances.

Gregory Porter in his second appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival, first time on the main stage.

Jeff Clayton - Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra

Carmen Lundy - Monterey Jazz Festival debut

Patrice Rushen w/Carmen Lunday

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66th Monterey Jazz Festival - Part 2, New Discoveries

Festivals offer the opportunity to see a variety of artists, within a short period of time, and frequently at the same venue. The Monterey Jazz Festival is one of that presents a well crafted mix ranging from established legends of the music to local fan favorites. Each year I especially look forward to hearing emerging artists that have either been part of groups or recordings from headliners and legends, composing and producing for other artists, part of a collective of artists involved with a variety of collaborations, or, stepping out on their own as a leader. The artist list for the 66th Monterey Jazz Festival is filled with artists I'm very familiar with and plan to hear their latest work. It also contains quite a few I've either heard on other artist's recordings, read about a number of times, heard their current recordings, or are just plain curious about. I know the pattern well. These artists that are less familiar to the festival audience at large frequently find...

Jazz 500 - An Overdue Personal Project

Hello again. First, I must apologize for being away for so long. I wish I had more of an excuse to give you, but the fact is, sometimes life just gets in the way. In any case, I’m back just in time for the heart of the festival season. Next up for me is the Monterey Jazz Festival in September. We have our tickets in hand, and can’t wait for this, the 61st edition, of the longest continuously running jazz festival in the world. In the meantime, if you’ve followed my Instagram feed in the past, you may have noticed quite a bit more activity than normal. I usually post images live from the festival, and hope to be doing that again this year. In addition, I’ve started a series I’m referring to as Jazz 500 (#jazz500). My Jazz Photojournalism adventure began in 1995. A year later, I covered my first Monterey Jazz Festival. Since then, I’ve covered it every year except 1997 and 1998. As you can imagine, after 20 years of photographing some of the greatest legends of the musi...

We've been away too long...

Jazz Currents returns 8/21/2023 We stepped away, unintentionally, 5 years ago. We're coming back, quite intentionally, on August 21st. Watch this space.

Jazz Currents

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