ON the Beat | Monterey Calling

Tarbaby, Monterey Jazz Festival 2024 | Photo: Josef Woodard

When it comes to historically and artistically important world-class jazz festivals within doable driving distance from Santa Barbara, all roads lead to Monterey. Well, mainly two roads — the 101 for expediency and Highway 1 through Big Sur for scenic splendor. At the risk of aging myself, I caught the Monterey Jazz Festival bug 40 years ago and haven’t missed one yet. It got to be a habit with me, like many others from NorCal and down the coast and beyond.

To be in the warm embrace of the Monterey Fairgrounds every third weekend of September, immersed in a varied sampler and overview of jazz in the present moment, makes for a potentially addictive annual pilgrimage for jazz fans of the diehard or newbie variety. Among the high points of the 68th annual program next weekend (September 26-28), on the main arena stage, are Christian McBride, Dianne Reeves, Gregory Porter, Christian Sands (the commissioned artist this year), crowd pleaser Trombone Shorty and Ledisi. Around the grounds, keep ears perked for the wondrous pianist Sullivan Fortner — a show-stealer last year — John and Gerald Clayton; Larry Goldings; young male vocalist dynamo Tyreek McDole, a Haitian-American now all of 24; and the superb 26-year-old female singer Ekep Nkwelle.

Christian McBride and Ursa Major | Photo: Mallory Turner

In a renewed logistic twist this year, the festival — changing up its organizational scheme since the COVID downtime — is resuming the old practice of simulcasting the “main arena” shows in a large hall in the compound, allowing those with a general grounds pass to check out the goings-on on the big stage. On the grounds, a few different stages pump out a steady flow of music, with vittles and vendors in the meandering mix.

A few facts are in order. The Monterey Jazz Festival, a k a MJF, prides itself as the oldest continuous jazz festival in the world — having begun just after the Newport Jazz Festival, which had some fallow years while the Monterey beat went steadily on, becoming the best fest in the west. The festival experience involves three nights and two days of dense musical offerings on local multiple stages around the Monterey Fairgrounds. The festival also promotes educational programs and the youthful Next Generation Big Band tradition — whose ranks have included such jazz luminaries-to-be as Mark Turner, Joshua Redman, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Larry Grenadier.

In my early years at MJF, it was the twilight period of founding director Jimmy Lyons’ guidance, which by that point was growing frustratingly narrow and conservative despite the lure of traditionalist music. The arrival of the broad-minded second director Tim Jackson, booker of Santa Cruz’ legendary Kuumbwa Jazz Center, bumped MJF into higher and more internationally revered ranks. Jackson retired in 2023, and Darin Atwater held the director reins last year only — a solid program in which my faves were Tarbaby, James Brandon Lewis, and Harriet Tubman on the smaller stages, a commissioned piece by recent Lobero visitor Robert Glasper and vocalist heroine Samara Joy (coming to the Granada on Thursday, October 2). Atwater is out now, and Bruce Labadie is an interim head, until the dust and director search settles.

Countless memorable moments have been embedded in my ear-brain over the decades, and a few spring to mind before deadline time: Ornette Coleman’s belated Monterey debut (early in the Jackson era), Maria Schneider’s Big Band, one of those time-stopping enchanted sets from Sonny Rollins, Bill Frisell, twice — premiering his commissioned Big Sur suite and in a magical duo set with the late, great drummer Paul Motian — my first encounter with Akinmusire’s mastery, and other sets I will remember later.

In one memorable and striking Monterey-specific conceptual case, Jason Moran’s commissioned work “Feedback” was a piece based on a recording of Jimi Hendrix’s iconic guitar feedback at his 1967 Monterey Pop Festival performance (“Wild Thing,” listen up here).

Charles Lloyd and the Marvels | Photo: Josef Woodard

Speaking of historic echoes of the Monterey mainstage, Montecito’s own Charles Lloyd has played here many times, going back to his 1966 performance released as the million-selling and career-exploding Forest Flower album featuring the then-young Keith Jarrett. (Quick update of the locally based saxophonist celebrity: Lloyd will release the latest entry in his prolific discography, Figure in Blue, on October 10, featuring his trio with Moran and the underrated guitarist poet Marvin Sewell, which performed last year at the Lobero, on Lloyd’s 87th birthday.)

Feasibly, the intrepid globetrotter Lloyd could drive to work from his hilltop Montecitan perch for his MJF gigs. He might take the 101 or, time permitting, the long and winding coast and cliff-hugging road of Highway 1 through his old hometown of Big Sur. Presumably, though, he wouldn’t be stopping at the enlightening scenic outlook of Big Sur’s landmark Nepenthe for a beer and a shot of a Pacific vista, as I’ve been known to do.

For jazz fans in the 805, Monterey is calling your name. Info here.