Monterey Jazz: The Music, the Festival, and the Community
Most jazz lovers know the Monterey Jazz Festival.
They know the name.
They know the history.
They know the legendary musicians who have walked onto its stages.
Duke Ellington.
Dizzy Gillespie.
Billie Holiday.
Dave Brubeck.
Miles Davis.
Oscar Peterson.
Bill Evans.
Charles Mingus.
Herbie Hancock.
The list is extraordinary.
But during this week's Jazz Piano Skills podcast, I discovered something...
👉 The Monterey Jazz Festival is only part of the Monterey Jazz story.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Bobbie Young, Managing Director of Monterey Jazz, and Mike Knapek, Monterey Jazz board member and longtime Jazz Piano Skills student.
I expected us to talk about the festival.
And we did.
But what unfolded was a much bigger conversation about jazz history, education, community, legacy, and the responsibility we all have to make sure this music continues for generations to come.
Jazz Has Needed Monterey Since 1958
The first Monterey Jazz Festival was held in 1958.
And remarkably...
It was held at the same place where the festival still takes place today:
The Monterey County Fairgrounds.
Ralph J. Gleason, Jimmy Lyons, Dave Brubeck, Clint Eastwood, and others helped bring the idea to life.
Their vision?
Bring great jazz to the West Coast.
And what a beginning it was.
That first festival featured musicians such as:
Dizzy Gillespie
Duke Ellington
Billie Holiday
Dave Brubeck
Jimmy Lyons would go on to serve as artistic director from 1958 through 1992.
And here's a wonderful piece of jazz history...
Just three years before the first Monterey Jazz Festival, Lyons introduced Erroll Garner at the legendary 1955 Concert by the Sea performance in Carmel.
Think about that!
The people helping build Monterey Jazz weren't simply presenting jazz.
👉 They were living in the middle of jazz history.
Nearly Seven Decades Later, the Music Is Still There
One of my favorite moments in the conversation came when I asked Bobbie and Mike a hypothetical question.
If Jimmy Lyons could walk into the Monterey Jazz Festival today...
What would he recognize?
And what would surprise him?
Some of the answers were hilarious.
The arena?
Pretty much the same.
The stage?
Familiar.
Even some of those folding chairs have been around for decades!
But the festival itself has grown tremendously.
What began with two stages now has five.
There are food vendors.
Arts and crafts.
Merchandise.
Thousands of people moving throughout the grounds.
And nearly seven decades of history surrounding everything.
But Bobbie made an important observation.
Despite all that growth...
👉 The music is still the music.
That connection between past and present may be one of Monterey's greatest accomplishments.
Monterey Jazz Is More Than a Festival
This was the first major revelation for me.
We hear the words Monterey Jazz and immediately think:
Festival.
Concerts.
Artists.
Performances.
Three incredible days of jazz.
But Mike pointed out something important during our conversation.
They don't simply refer to the organization as the "Monterey Jazz Festival."
It's Monterey Jazz.
Why?
Because the festival is only one part of what the organization does.
Bobbie and her team work year-round.
In fact, Monterey Jazz has only eight full-time staff members working throughout the year.
And once Bobbie began describing everything they do...
I was stunned.
Because one of the biggest parts of the Monterey Jazz mission isn't simply presenting jazz.
👉 It's educating people through jazz.
The Monterey Jazz Story Most People Don't Know
Bobbie shared something during the interview that, for me, changed the entire conversation:
“We host the festival so we can have education programs.”
Read that again!
The festival isn't the entire mission.
It helps support the mission.
And Monterey Jazz currently has a remarkable collection of educational programs serving students, aspiring musicians, adults, schools, and communities.
Among them:
Regional All-Star Big Band
Regional All-Star Vocal Ensemble
Middle School Combo
Next Generation Jazz Orchestra
Women in Jazz Combo
Community concerts and school outreach
Traveling musician workshops
Jazz camp
HBCU partnerships
Trading Fours adult music program
Youth guitar instruction
Music therapy programming
This is where I had to stop Bobbie during the interview.
I was blown away.
Because, like, so many people...
I knew about the festival.
👉 I didn't fully understand the educational organization behind it.
Where the Next Generation of Jazz Begins
Perhaps nothing illustrates Monterey Jazz's educational impact better than the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra.
The program began in 1972 as the California All-Stars.
Today, more than 200 students from across the United States audition for just 21 seats in the big band.
And some of the musicians who have come through Monterey Jazz educational programs?
Ambrose Akinmusire.
Emmet Cohen.
Benny Green.
Patrice Rushen.
Joshua Redman.
Donny McCaslin.
Elena Pinderhughes.
That's not simply an educational program.
👉 That's part of the lineage of jazz.
And the work continues.
The Next Generation Jazz Orchestra is currently directed by pianist and composer Gerald Clayton.
Monterey Jazz also created the Women in Jazz Combo after recognizing that many talented young women were having difficulty finding opportunities in high school jazz bands.
Six young women are selected for the ensemble and work with bassist, vocalist, and composer Katie Thiroux.
Again...
This isn't merely about teaching students how to play music.
It's about creating opportunities for musicians to grow.
The People Are More Important Than the Music
During the conversation, I shared something I say frequently to the faculty at the Dallas School of Music:
👉 The people we serve are much more important than the music we teach.
I love music.
I love jazz.
I've devoted my life to...
studying it,
playing it,
and teaching it.
But ultimately...
Music serves people.
And listening to Bobbie describe Monterey Jazz's educational outreach reminded me of that truth again and again.
They bring jazz concerts to children who might otherwise never experience live jazz.
They work with local schools.
They provide opportunities for young musicians.
They've developed partnerships with HBCUs.
They've introduced guitar instruction to elementary students—and given those students instruments they can keep.
They've even begun using music programming to provide support for high school students managing PTSD.
That's not simply preserving jazz.
👉 That's using jazz to serve people.
Jazz Education Doesn't End With Children
And here's something else I loved.
Monterey Jazz hasn't forgotten about adults.
Their Trading Fours program gives adults interested in jazz an opportunity to learn, take classes, play, and perform.
That matters.
Because one of the biggest misconceptions about music education is that it somehow belongs exclusively to young people.
It doesn't.
Music is for life.
We talked about George Coleman, who performed at the first Monterey Jazz Festival in 1958 and is still part of the living history of this music.
We talked about musicians continuing to perform well into their 80s and 90s.
And we joked about Monterey Jazz someday creating an adult jazz camp.
Count me in!
Because whether you're 15, 50, or 90...
👉 There is always more music to discover.
The Monterey Jazz Festival Is an Experience
Of course...
We had to talk about the festival.
And listening to Bobbie and Mike describe it made one thing very clear:
Monterey isn't simply someplace you go to hear concerts.
It's an experience.
Multiple stages.
Music happening throughout the grounds.
Arts and crafts.
Food.
Artists meeting patrons.
People moving from one performance to another.
And after the festival closes for the evening?
The music can continue elsewhere around Monterey with late-night performances and jam sessions.
But Bobbie described something even more important.
Community.
There are patrons who have been attending Monterey for decades.
Friends return year after year and reconnect.
Some longtime ticket holders even pass their seats along to family members.
For many people, Monterey has become an annual reunion.
And that's when a jazz festival becomes something much more significant than a series of performances.
👉 It becomes part of people's lives.
Honoring the Past Without Living in It
Mike used an important word when we talked about the future of Monterey Jazz:
Evolve.
That's exactly right.
Monterey has an extraordinary history.
But history alone cannot sustain jazz.
The organization has to ask:
How do we reach younger listeners?
How do we introduce new audiences to jazz?
How do we honor the Great American Songbook while remaining open to where the music is going?
How do we present artists who stretch the boundaries of what some listeners might traditionally call jazz?
Those aren't threats to the tradition.
They're part of the tradition.
Because jazz musicians have always done precisely that.
They listen.
They absorb.
They experiment.
They respond to their time.
They evolve.
👉 Preserving jazz doesn't mean freezing it in place.
It means giving the music room to continue becoming itself.
Nearly 70 Years of Jazz History
Consider some of the musicians who have been part of Monterey's history.
Billie Holiday.
Duke Ellington.
Dizzy Gillespie.
Miles Davis.
Sarah Vaughan.
Ornette Coleman.
Oscar Peterson.
Dexter Gordon.
Erroll Garner.
Dave Brubeck.
Bill Evans.
Charles Mingus.
Monty Alexander.
Chick Corea.
Quincy Jones.
Charles Lloyd.
Herbie Hancock.
And generations of musicians who followed them.
At some point, you realize you're not simply looking at a festival lineup.
👉 You're looking at a substantial piece of modern jazz history.
And the Story Is Still Being Written
That's what makes Monterey so special.
It would be easy for an organization with this much history to spend all its time looking backward.
But Monterey Jazz isn't a museum.
New musicians continue walking onto those stages.
Young musicians continue entering its educational programs.
New audiences continue discovering the music.
And Monterey continues asking what jazz should look like for the next generation.
That's the responsibility that comes with legacy.
Honor what came before...
Without preventing what comes next.
Why Jazz Still Needs Monterey
Near the end of our conversation, something occurred to me.
And I said it to Bobbie and Mike:
👉 Jazz needs Monterey.
The more I've thought about it, the more convinced I am that it's true.
Jazz needs places where masters can perform.
Jazz needs organizations that preserve its history.
Jazz needs stages where young musicians can stand beside established artists.
Jazz needs children hearing this music for the first time.
Jazz needs educators.
Jazz needs audiences.
Jazz needs communities.
Jazz needs places where an 80-year-old lifelong listener and a teenager discovering jazz can experience the same music together.
And perhaps most importantly...
Jazz needs organizations willing to invest in people who will carry the music forward.
That's what Monterey represents.
Not simply preservation.
👉 Continuation.
Your Challenge This Week
This week's challenge is a little different.
I'm not asking you to practice a voicing.
Learn a scale.
Analyze a melody.
Develop a rhythmic phrase.
Or sit down at the piano at all.
Instead...
👉 Support jazz.
Go hear live music.
Introduce someone to a jazz recording you love.
Support a local jazz musician.
Encourage a young student.
Attend a concert.
Support an educational organization.
Take someone to hear jazz who has never experienced it live.
Because this music doesn't continue simply because we love its history.
It continues because we participate in its future.
Final Thought
The Monterey Jazz Festival began in 1958 because a group of people believed jazz deserved a place on the West Coast where it could be heard, celebrated, and shared.
Nearly seven decades later...
That idea has grown into something much larger.
Performance.
Education.
History.
Community.
Opportunity.
Legacy.
And after spending an hour with Bobbie Young and Mike Knapek, I walked away realizing that perhaps the most important thing Monterey Jazz does isn't celebrating what jazz was.
👉 It's helping ensure there will always be a what comes next.
The festival matters.
The history matters.
The legendary musicians matter.
But ultimately...
It's the people who will carry this music forward who matter most.
And that's why I said it during our conversation...
And I'll say it again:
👉 Jazz needs Monterey.
Discover • Learn • Play.
🎧 Listen Now: Jazz Piano Skills Podcast: Monterey Jazz Become a Member: Jazz Piano Skills
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Warm Regards, Dr. Bob Lawrence
Jazz Piano Skills
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