by Janet Grischy

Created on: May 19, 2009

Since 1958, the Monterey Jazz Festival has been bringing together great musicians and their avid fans on the Monterey peninsula. It is held the first full weekend in September, when the weather is usually mellow and lovely. It begins Friday evening and continues through Sunday, with a continuing stream of established artists and future stars in an atmosphere of dedication to music.

The Monterey County Fairgrounds, where the event is held, is close to many hotels, motels, and Bed and Breakfasts. People who come to the festival can also camp in the pleasant hills of Laguna Seca County Recreation Area or at the seaside Marina Dunes in the city of Marina. Both locations offer RV and tent camping. People who live or stay nearby have the option of biking to the festival, which has bike valet service.

The Fairgrounds itself is charming. Shaded with mature oak trees, the site takes up more than twenty acres. There are nine stages, from the Jimmy Lyons Arena where the headliners play to the smaller venues where the audience gets pretty close to young performers. All the performances in the Arena are simulcast so that every attendee has the opportunity to see and hear them.

There are two basic kinds of festival tickets, one that admits visors to the Arena shows as well as the grounds, and one, the grounds ticket, which admits guests to every grounds show as well as simulcasts of the acts in the Jimmy Lyons Arena and elsewhere. These tickets start at $35. Over 40,000 people came to the festival last year, but it still feels more like a party than a crowd.

Many places to eat and drink on the grounds, bars, a coffeehouse, and vendors offer festival-related diversions. It is possible to rent large cabanas, too, which the festival calls chalets, with catering and bar or with tickets to choose your own refreshments.

The focus of the festival is the music, of course, but it has another purpose too. Run by a non-profit organization, it raises money to fund music education for students across the country. It provides scholarships to the Berklee College of Music, a Boston institution whose alumni include Bradford Marsalis, John Mayer, Melissa Etheridge, Kevin Eubanks, John Scofield, Quincy Jones, Diana Krall, and many more. The school trains teachers, music therapists, sound engineers, and songwriters as well as superstars.

The first Monterey Festival featured Billie Holliday, in one of her last performances. Also performing then were Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Sonny Rollins, Cal Tjader, and many more. Dave Brubeck was a headliner.

He is back again for 2009, along with Wynton Marsalis, who made his first appearance here in 1983. Pete Seeger will be here too, still singing out. Chick Corea will appear and such newcomers to the festival as Soulive, Lizz Wright, and Jonathan Batiste. It is going to be a great show.

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