Women, local artists grab spotlight at Monterey
Musicians such as Tammy Hall, Kristen Strom getting their due at jazz festival
There’s no shortage of big-name acts playing the main arena at the Monterey Jazz Festival this weekend.
Pulitzer Prize-winning trumpeter Wynton Marsalis leads the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and multi-platinum selling vocalist/pianist Norah Jones introduces the West Coast to her all-star trio with drummer Brian Blade.
Infectiously charismatic New Orleans pianist Jon Batiste, taking a break from his bandleader duties on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” teams up with the Dap Kings in the band’s first major collaboration since powerhouse soul singer Sharon Jones’ death in November 2016. And tenor saxophonist/flutist Charles Lloyd performs with The Marvels and special guest Lucinda Williams, returning to the stage that catapulted him into the rock-star firmament in 1966.
It’s easy to quickly find the marquee artists, but to discover some of the treasures of the local jazz scene, the place to hunt is the grounds, where one ticket provides entree to four different venues. There are plenty of excellent outof-town players featured on the Monterey County Fairgrounds, too, but the festival has long thrived by feeding off the synergy created in spotlighting masters resident in its own backyard. Of course, it helps when you think of the lawn to San Diego.
“I think any good arts organization has to reflect your community and be part of it,” said Tim Jackson, the MJF’s longtime artistic director. “You have to keep in mind all the great musicians out there. It’s more than the Bay Area. I make sure we stay focused on the Monterey Bay and Santa Cruz, even down to Los Angeles, which I really count as kind of local. I do feel a strong allegiance.”
Tapping into the roiling creativity of the Southland scene, Jackson booked L.A. bassist/vocalist Katie Thiroux’s trio, which played an exceptionally engaging set as part of San Jose Jazz’s Summer Fest last month, and West Coast Get Down pianist Cameron Graves’ quartet with drummer Mike Mitchell, an act spun off from the Kamasi Washington constellation. But no region west of New York City is better represented on the fairgrounds than the greater Bay Area.
San Jose guitarist Hristo Vitchev kicks off the festival Friday on the outdoor Garden Stage, followed by San Francisco pianist Tammy L. Hall’s Peace-tet with special guest vocalist Kim Nalley. The last time Hall played Monterey, she was backing Nalley, and she’s best known as a supremely accomplished accompanist via her work with many of the region’s finest singers.
Featuring veteran bassist Ruth Davies, drummer Ruthie Price, percussionist Michaelle Goerlitz and saxophonist Kristen Strom, Hall’s Peace-tet highlights another thread running through this season’s programming, the conspicuous presence of more women bandleaders and instrumentalists than before. Hall credits the sea change at least partly to advocacy spearheaded by East Bay trumpeter Ellen Seeling, co-leader of the Montclair Women’s Big Band, which played the festival in 2016, and a catalyst behind the all-male Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra adopting blind auditions.
“Tim has been extremely supportive over the years,” Hall said. “But I think Ellen Seeling and her advocacy group has been heard and you can see that on the fairgrounds this year.”
At about the same time that Hall’s Peace-tet is on stage Friday, Oakland bassist/composer Lisa Mezzacappa performs in the intimate Pacific Jazz Café with her antic avantNOIR sextet, a group that plays her cunningly crafted original music inspired by film noir and hard-boiled crime novels. Saturday afternoon in Dizzy’s Den, Kristen Strom celebrates the release of “Moving Day,” a new album dedicated to the gorgeous music of the late, beloved San Jose bassist John Shifflett.
“I like to look for and recognize those undersung gems,” Jackson said. “John was certainly that. Any group that he was part of he raised the musical level. He was a quiet, unassuming guy, but very clear in his musical direction, and all the musicians loved playing with him. That personality type can fly a little under the radar. When I saw Kris was doing this project, I told her I’d love to present it.”
Saturday’s roster in the Night Club features a bevy of artists who should be more widely celebrated. Oakland percussion great John Santos presents his Unusual Standards sextet with the spectacular vocalists Kenny Washington and Destani Wolf, who’s heading to India in the fall with a major role in Cirque du Soleil’s new show, “Bazzar.”
But from rising players such as the teenage Monterey-area sisters Akili and Ayana Bradley (on trumpet and piano, respectively), who follow Strom’s Moving Day Saturday afternoon in Dizzy’s Den, to the festival’s artists-in-residence ,Tia Fuller (alto sax) and Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), “the women in jazz story is pervasive,” Jackson said. “There so many incredible womenled groups now, this felt like the right thing to do.”