When is the Monterey Jazz Festival?

The 66th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival • Sept 22-24, 2023

About the Monterey Jazz Festival

The Monterey Jazz Festival is the longest continuously-running jazz festival in the world and is held annually on the 20-acre, oak-studded Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, Calif. Since 1958, the nonprofit Monterey Jazz Festival has been committed to celebrating America’s creativity and cultural heritage by presenting legendary jazz musicians, composers, and young rising stars.

MontereyJazzFestival.org

In 1997, Warner Bros released Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years, a 3-disc live boxed set of some of the greatest musical moments at the Festival.

Featuring such jazz greats as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRea, Shirley Horn, Sara Vaughan, Joe Williams, and more, the CD liner notes were written by iconic film star turned director—and famous jazz afficianado—Clint Eastwood:

“I ATTENDED THE FIRST MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL; it was a great event. There was a lot of fog, and old-time airplanes were flying overhead, but it was a lot of fun and everybody had a good time. One of the planes came down out of the fog just as Brubeck was in the middle of a solo. He was jamming away and the audience wondered what he’d do as that plane zoomed overhead. He just broke right into “Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder” – bang, and then went back to what he was playing. The audience laughed and went with it – he had them in the palm of his hand.

“I came back to the Festival many times through the years. When I moved back to Monterey part-time during the 60’s, it was one of the big events for us, something we always looked forward to. I brought my son, Kyle, to the Festival when he was young, and now he’s performed there himself several times, which makes us both very proud.

“Jazz was an important factor in “Play Misty For Me,” the first movie I directed: we filmed several scenes at the Festival. We shot part of “Misty” in the main arena. using a hand-held camera. and I had to learn to improvise.

“Improvisation as a filmmaker is analogous to improvisation as a musician. I think in some ways my work has helped deepen my appreciation of this type of music. I’ve also done several jazz documentaries, including one on Thelonious Monk, whom I saw at Monterey. I liked his bold style and seeing him perform at the Festival had a strong effect on me.

“As you listen to this collection, you’ll see how jazz and the Monterey Festival have changed through the years. In the 70’s and 80’s jazz seemed to be getting very serious, but now it’s headed back to that earlier, easier feeling.

“Jazz is not only bluesy and forlorn – it also has humor and an upbeat, happy thing about itself. It reflects the independence of the people who were willing to spend their lives playing their music.

“Today, the Monterey Jazz Festival is really one of the great ones; and it has a history to match. I hope you’ll hear some of the great moments on these recordings and share the wonderful memories of music and celebration with those of us who, were there.” —Clint Eastwood

Also in 1997, jazz historian William Minor was chosen to write the history of the Monterey Jazz Festival. Clint Eastwood also wrote the Foreword to Minor’s Monterey Jazz Festival: Forty Legendary Years (Hardcover):

“I’ve been a jazz fan as far back as I can remember. When I was twelve years old, living in Oakland, California, I discovered a radio program called Dixieland Jubilee, and that was the beginning. I started going to jazz concerts and clubs in the Bay Area even though I was too young to drink; it was the music that attracted me.

“I came to Monterey for the first time in 1951, when I was in the military. It was a quiet place then, but I saw a few players at the old Blue Ox and the Casa Munras. On weekends I would go into San Francisco to hear Mulligan, Brubeck and all the guys playing there. It was a great time for jazz and the Bay Area influence was spreading.

“When I got out of the service I kept coming back to the Monterey Peninsula, even when I was in college in southern California. And when I heard that there was going to be a jazz festival in Monterey I came up for it.

“The first Monterey Jazz Festival was more like a fair than a series of planned concerts. It was a much smaller event than now, centered in the main arena of the fairgrounds. Typical of events of that era, the sound system didn’t always work, and someone would always be coming out on stage tapping on the microphones or blowing into them. There was feedback, a lot of fog and old-time planes were flying in; but everyone had a good time. It was the beginning of something that kept on growing.

“I came back to the Jazz Festival over the years and always enjoyed myself. Then, in 1970, I was directing my first film, Play Misty for Me, and I needed an event as a transition in the film. Since the Festival was happening in Monterey at the time, I thought we might be able to film in the middle of the fairgrounds, where lots of things were going on, to create the backdrop for a suspense turning point.

“I went to talk to Jimmy Lyons who was the head of the Festival, about filming there. At that point I had known of Jimmy since the 1940s. He had a jazz radio program in San Francisco and he played some good stuff. That was the time of the introduction of Shearing and Brubeck and all that West Coast sound, and Jimmy was right there with it.

“Jimmy was great about my request. He suggested the blues afternoon because of the colorful clothes that people wore and the fact that the audience usually got up and danced to that music. So that’s what we filmed and, later that day, we shot Cannonball Adderley, one of my favorite alto sax players. In the end, jazz played a big part in that movie and in my subsequent films.

“When I moved up to the Peninsula in the 1960s, the Monterey Jazz Festival was a big thing to look forward to each year. We liked the Bach Festival in Carmel and the Jazz Festival at the Monterey Fairgrounds; those were the key events during the year. My son Kyle was introduced to the Festival at an early age, and last year he made his second appearance there as a performer, which was a real thrill for both of us.

“Today the Jazz Festival has grown to fill the whole fairgrounds; it’s a world-famous gathering. Now you can wander from venue to venue and grab a bite to eat in between, which is nice, but sometimes it’s frustrating to realize that there are so many great acts going on simultaneously that you can’t possibly hear them all. Still, you do the best you can and hope that you’ll catch the performances you missed when the players come back another year.

“The Monterey Jazz Festival has had so much history that over time its bugs have been worked out and now it’s a world-class festival. In the early days when jazz was less serious, there used to be many jam sessions late into the nights. In the Seventies and Eighties everyone got serious — maybe too serious, because jazz is bluesy and forlorn, but also happy and upbeat. Today I’m glad to see that there seems to be a shift back to that feeling of celebration in jazz.

“As you turn the pages of this book, I hope you’ll feel the celebration in jazz at Monterey, those forty years of the shaping of Jimmy Lyons’ dream into what is now a great festival. Many who are no longer with us have contributed to the success of the Monterey Jazz Festival and to the memories that so many of us carry. And in those ranks are countless legends of the jazz world whose contributions to music and to Monterey are unforgettable. The many photographs and recollections included here celebrate those first forty years and the promise of more to come.” —Clint Eastwood

Excerpts from this informative and entertaining book can be read at the publisher’s website, Angel City Press.

SIDEBAR: It may also be of interest to note that Clint Eastwood directed a documentary about the legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker, in Bird.