Many hundreds of people travel umpteen thousands of miles to come to Monterey this week for the Monterey Jazz Festival—the world’s longest-running (and probably best) jazz fest. Good for them—we welcome all MJF visitors and hope they have fun.

For locals, who have already saved the cost of airfare and motels, the Festival can be a real bargain.

Most of the big-name superstars who are playing the pricey (and generally sold-out) shows on the Jimmy Lyons Stage in the Arena also perform on one of the smaller stages around the fairgrounds at other times over the weekend. In addition, MJF General Manager Tim Jackson and his staff have taken care to bring in lesser-known players—many of them future stars—to fill out the venues.

For the price of a grounds ticket, we locals can see a half-dozen great shows every day.

The main stage acts this year are typically first-rate and typically, brilliantly eclectic: tap-dance star Savion Glover; vocalese sensation Bobby McFerrin, drummer-demigod Jack DeJohnette; Terence Blanchard’s tribute to Dizzy Gillespie; clarinet virtuoso Don Byron; disco diva turned jazz chanteuse Chaka Khan; genre-hopping violinist Regina Carter; piano legend Marian McPartland; etc.

The grounds artists are, frankly, just as cool. There are literally dozens of acts worth catching; here are just some of the highlights.

---

FRIDAY NIGHT
6:30pm
Milton Fletcher, Jr. Trio
Five years ago the young pianist and Seaside native won MJF’s coveted Jimmy Lyons Scholarship to the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He returns to kick off the festivities with his own trio, performing their own brand of tradition-soaked contemporary jazz. [Eric Johnson]
GARDEN STAGE

8:30pm
The Bad Plus
The Bad Plus are a particularly listenable avant-garde outfit. Pianist Ethan Iverson, drummer Dave King and bassist Reid Anderson exercise a postmodern sense of humor and a penchant for unusual covers, of songs by new wave elders Blondie and The Police, or by the electronic mad genius Aphex Twin, or by the recently reformed alternative rock icons, The Pixies. [Yoshi Kato]
DIZZY’S DEN

10pm
Charlie Hunter Trio
The Berkeley native is famed for his funky and explorative playing on a custom-made eight-string guitar: He plays bass lines on the top two strings and chords and lead lines on the other six. An alumnus and pioneer of the Bay Area jazz scene of the 1990s, Hunter’s lived in the greater New York area for the past seven years. Before heading east, he was well-known from his work with two successful Bay Area-based groups—his own trio and a band called T.J. Kirk, which featured Hunter, drummer Scott Amendola and guitarists Will Bernard and John Schott. Hunter’s latest trio includes saxophonist John Ellis and drummer Derrick Phillips. [Yoshi Kato]
DIZZY’S DEN

---

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

2:30pm
Charlie Musselwhite
Thirty-eight years after releasing his legendary debut, Stand Back!, blues harmonica player Charle Musselwhite is showing no signs of slowing down with the passing of time. This past April, Musselwhite won his 15th W.C. Handy Award. This time it was for Best Blues Instrumentalist in the Harmonica category. In the same month, the blues stalwart released Sanctuary, a new album featuring original compositions and covers of tunes written by Ben Harper, Townes Van Zandt and Randy Newman. Guest artists on the CD include Harper, Sonny Landreth and The Blind Boys of Alabama. [Stuart Thornton]
GARDEN STAGE

3pm
A Conversation with Marian McPartland and Clint Eastwood
The matriarch of the jazz piano, McPartland, host of the National Public Radio program Piano Jazz, is (almost) as scintilating a conversationalist as she is a player. With a career that spans four decades, she brings deep knowledge as well as warmth to the topic. Eastwood, who’s reputed to be a fine pianist himself, is a serious student of the instrument—his contribution to last year’s multi-part television series, The Blues, was a refreshing look at the roll of the piano in American music. [Eric Johnson]
DIZZY’S DEN

3pm
Bettye LaVette
A year ago, up the coast and across the Golden Gate Bridge at the Sweetwater, blues lovers and legends Huey Lewis, Steve Miller, Maria Muldaur, and Bonnie Raitt were part of an audience learning more about a rare songbird, appearing at the Mill Valley club that night with Howard Tate. The name Bettye LaVette may have been unfamiliar to most, but the sound was irresistibly appealing: gritty, gravely, passionate, and lushly adept.
“Bettye is one of the most incredible R&B singers singing today,” was Raitt’s simple and definitive proclamation; “She’s the real deal,” agreed Lewis.
It’s never too late for the rest of the world to discover this 58-year-old native of Muskegon, Michigan, whose A Woman Like Me, on the San Francisco independent Blues Express label, was dubbed Comeback Blues Album of the Year at this Spring’s W.C. Handy Awards ceremony. [Jeff Kalis]
GARDEN STAGE

---

SATURDAY NIGHT
8pm
Don Byron Ivey-Divey Trio with Jason Moran and Jack DeJohnette
Saturday night at Dizzy’s Den is an all-night blowout; Mark Levine & the Latin Tinge open and the Bill Charlap Trio close—both shows are bound to be excellent. But this project, fronted by jazz-classical-klezmer crossover genius Don Byron, with the great contemporary pianist, Jason Moran, and the all-star drumming legend, Jack DeJohnette, is a don’t-miss. [Eric Johnson]
DIZZY’S DEN

8pm/9:30pm/11pm
Lynne Arriale Trio
Pianist/composer/bandleader Arriale won a small, loyal, local following with a show at the Jazz and Blues Company in Carmel a few years back—her intense, spare and lovely melodies have since made her something of an up-and-coming star in the world of jazz piano.
She is at Monterey this year to perform on the big stage as a special guest with Marian McPartland; she plays with her trio in what promises to be an unforgettable series of sets here. [Eric Johnson]
NIGHTCLUB

---

SUNDAY AFTERNOON
2pm
Berklee-Monterey Quartet 2004
It is not as well known as it might be: but this is really what MJF is all about. On Sunday, on the Jimmy Lyons Stage in the Arena, the Monterey Jazz Festival High School All-Star Big Band will perform; and throughout the Fairgrounds, young jazz musicians from all over the country perform with their high school bands and honor bands. The Berklee Monterey Quartet, made up of college students studying at the prestigious Boston school, is the cream of the crop of young players. It will be an exciting show. [Eric Johnson]
GARDEN STAGE

---

SUNDAY NIGHT
7:30pm
Jack DeJohnette Latin Project
Drummer Jack DeJohnette has been maintaining his “deep groove,” which Miles Davis said he “just loved to play over,” through four decades of visionary associations.
The two greats appeared together at Monterey in 1969, and this year DeJohnette returns as a Festival Showcase Artist. He appears Friday evening with like-minded vocalist Bobby McFerrin, and on Saturday with a trio featuring Don Byron and Jason Moran. His latest recording, Music in the Key of Om on the Golden Beams label, is dedicated to “peace, relaxation, and healing.” [Jeff Kalis]
DIZZY’S DEN

9pm
Regina Carter Quintet
The Monterey Jazz Festival’s first-ever year-round Artist In Residence, Regina Carter, has made pleasant waves in both the jazz and classical music worlds [see story, page 23]. She will be all over the Fairgrounds this weekend, but this is the best way to see her in her prime element, with her own quintet in these comfy confines. [Eric Johnson]
DIZZY’S DEN