2003 Monterey Jazz Festival

This year's Monterey Jazz Festival was one of the best in recent years.  The lineup was excellent, the weather was great (too warm for some, but okay for me), and the music was, of course, the best in the world. 

Before I go into the rundown of what we saw, though, allow me a minute to pay tribute to a great influence of mine - Bill Berry.  Bill passed away this past November at the age of 72.  He was the director of the Monterey Jazz Festival High School All Star Big Band (I know, it's a mouthful, hereafter referred to as the All Stars) since 1981 and continued through the Japan tour in 2002.  I played in the All Stars in 1991 and 1992 on both the Japan tour and at the MJF both years.  Of course, his credits extend far beyond playing with me (har har).  Though his resume was long, most notable was several years touring and recording with Duke Ellington.  The MJF has named the Night Club stage after him in his honor.  This is no small tribute as there are only three venues named after people:  the Jimmy Lyons Arena, Dizzy's Den, and the Bill Berry stage at the night club.  All three have special meaning to me personally.  I played with the All Stars, directed by Bill Berry, in two very significant years: Jimmy Lyons's last year as General Manager of the MJF, and Dizzy Gillespie's last year performing (1991) and visiting (1992) the MJF (he played a few tunes with us in 1991 and co-directed along with Bill Berry and Paul Contos in 1992).  I'll miss seeing Bill at the festival every year and, more importantly, the kids will miss having such a legendary director and influence.  In addition to naming the night club stage after Bill, there was an entire performance dedicated to him and a very special trumpet trio tribute to him of former All Stars playing with the All Star band (more on that later).  I'll miss seeing Bill at the festival every year but I'll always remember the inspiration he was to me.

Having said all that, let's get on with the show.  Opening up Friday night was Michel Camilo and his trio.  Anthony Jackson is off doing other things so we got to hear bass player Charles Flores along with drummer Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez.  Let me tell you, Horacio is one sick drummer.  Anybody that can keep up with Michel Camilo has to be world class, but this guy takes the cake.  This was my first time hearing Michel live and it was worth the wait (I think I first heard his playing more than a dozen years ago).  We decided to catch him twice and went over to the night club to hear his second set.  In between the two, we stopped by Tower, picked up a couple copies of his new live CD, and managed to get him to sign em and snap a quick picture ;)

That took up our whole Friday night.  On Saturday, we normally skip the show since it's normally all blues.  This time, though, we decided to stop in to hear the Neville Brothers play.  It was more of a New Orleans style show (Buckwheat Zydeco and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band also played) so we thought it'd be worth showing up at least to see the Nevilles play.  Saturday evening brought Ralph Towner and Gary Burton with a commision piece.  It was actually one of the more pleasing commission pieces to listen to that I can recall. 

Closing the Saturday night show was the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra.  I've always enjoyed Jeff Hamilton's playing and was excited to hear him in this setting (last time he was at Monterey it was with a trio).  A special treat was the fact that several of the band members were familiar names.  Sal Cracchiolo (trumpet) and Art Velasco (trombone) were both in the band having formerly played with one of my favorites, Poncho Sanchez, for years.  Also, Gilbert Castellanos was in the trumpet section.  Gilbert and I used to play together regularly in high school and Gilbert was in the All Stars the two years before I was (1989 and 1990).  They all played great, serving up one of the best big band performances in recent years.

Sunday, I had the pleasure of joining my friend Matt Sagen in the front row of the arena for the All Stars show.  Matt was the piano player in the All Stars when I was in the band and we have kept in touch ever since.  As the show progressed, we agreed it was the best All Star band either one of us had ever seen.  Paul Contos (formerly the assistant director, with whom we toured) has taken up the director's chair with the passing of Bill Berry.  He obviously did an outstanding job with this extremely talented group.  This years artists in residence were the Clayton brothers, Jeff Hamilton and Gary Burton.  Gary came out and played a tune, and then the Clayton's and Jeff came out to play several numbers.  John Clayton directed (and played one bass solo) and they did a couple of the same tunes their band did the previous night.  One of them was a sax section feature which absolutely smoked!  Though Jeff Clayton was in the section, it was clear the whole section was stellar.  Blindfolded, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the All Stars and Clayton - Hamilton (and that's in no way a slam on Clayton - Hamilton, rather an overwhelming endorsement of the quality of these sax players).  Most noteable was Matt Marantz from Dallas, TX who, I'm very confident, we'll hear much more from.

For the last tune, the band did a very special tribute to Bill Berry.  I can recall playing a Night in Tunesia with the band, but this rendition was special.  Not only was Dizzy not around to play along (he wrote the tune) but now Bill was 'watching from afar' as well.  To fill in the holes, three former band members were brought out to play the solos.  Interestingly, two of them I had played with before (Gilbert, though not in the All Stars, and Tonya Darby).  They did an outstanding job with the tribute.  Bill would have been proud (heck, Dizzy would have too)!