Monterery Jazz Festival - the afterglow

It's a week after the festival and I'm still going through withdrawal. So many artist, so many great performances, and so many Monterey Moments get packed into a weekend that just flies by. I wish I could say I caught all the performances. I can say that I covered as much ground as I could, and saw as many artists as possible. There wasn't anything that disappointed me, but then, this is Monterey. There is rarely a disappointing performance.

As I sift through some 1200 images captured over the course of the weekend, I'll be updating my online image gallery. There's an overview gallery this year's festival up now that will grow, and be supplemented with galleries of individual performers.

For the notes and reviews, watch for detailed reviews from my notes on individual performance over the next few week. This is going to take a while to go through, but it's worth giving each artist their due. Plus, there's a selfish aspect to this approach. If 'm trying to push out frequent reviews of the performances, that will force me to get work through all the photos faster. You get a constanct flow of information, and I get my images edited; everybody wins. Okay, I get the big win.
Anyway, the blog will get much more frequent updates, and along the way I'll mix in some CD and DVD reviews, and hopefully some recaps from the San francisco Jazz Festival. We'll see how this goes.

Comments

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...

66th Monterey Jazz Festival - The Tradition Continues - Part 1

Closing Out The Summer, and Festival Season Opening Friday, September 22nd, the Monterey Jazz Festival continues its run Herbie Hancock as the longest continuously-running jazz festival in the world. After two years of adjustments coming out of the pandemic, the three-day festival has hit its stride without having to make many major adjustments. The richness of the performance schedule and variety of artist is unchanged, and unparalleled. The tradition of presenting the established and recognized legends, the up and coming rising stars, and the stars to be, remains a key focus. As to be expected, over the lifespan of a legacy as great as Monterey, evolution is inevitable and necessary to remain viable. Festival organizers world wide have had to make adjustments in this post-pandemic era. The Monterey Jazz Festival organizers are no exception. Safety concerns for the attendees following the reopening of live venues made it necessary to close down the Night Club and Dizzy’s ...

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...

Jazz Currents

Search This Blog