Monterey, USA

Later on opening night, the business of switching gears and genres, but more with electronics and funk-lined grooves in tow, continued with Herbie Hancock’s plugged-in band—injecting old hits like "Chameleon” and "Rockit” with touches of subversive sophistication. From a generation-plus down, the main stage also shook with the hip hop-infused but musicality-blessed, and Grammy-awarded--Robert Glasper Experiment. For my tastes, the before Glasper’s band and synth keyboards ruled the stage, as he embarked on a fascinating 15-minute grand piano duo with Jason Moran, moving through bluesy maneuvers in tribute to the recently belated pianist Joe Sample (Houston, Texas-born, like Moran and Glasper), free jazz-ish moments and melodic tenderness.

That duet mini-set turned out to be one of the festival’s surprise treats, and paved the pianistic path over to the nearby Coffee House Gallery (the festival’s annual venue for the art of the piano trio), where Harold Mabern was holding forth in his elegant and fiery way. Further pianistic prowess came with Geoffrey Keezer’s trio, for three sets on Sunday. Other highlights of the "side stages” included the dynamic and unique South Korean singer Youn Sun Nah (with flexible guitarist Ulf Wakenius) on the outdoor Garden Stage, followed by Brian Blade’s gospel-infused and warm-spirited adventure of a band, Fellowship. In terms of strong female vocalists on the agenda this year, one has to also bow in the general direction of the wonderful and original folk-jazz-poet sensation Becca Stevens. She asserted a bold but ever-sensitive impression with her post-Joni Mitchell music while leading her own band, and paid visits to the sets by Ambrose Akinmusire (whose latest album, the imagined savior is far easier to paint, she appears on) and also as a well-suited singer in Billy Childs’ Laura Nyro tribute, "Map to the Treasure.”

Late night acts on the arena main stage tend to lean towards crowd-pleasing and energetic finales, compared to the subtler business earlier in the evening. This year, the late night late fare was Hancock’s populist band, The Roots, the respected and groove-machining band heard nightly on TV’s "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” As high energy and entertaining as they were, The Roots felt a bit out of place, and shy of jazz cred: they might have felt more in synch with the traditional Monterey programming agenda on the Sunday afternoon block, where Marcus Miller funked his way into the hearts and minds of the crowd. Capping off the festival, at least on the main stage, Michael Feinstein offered up his swing-meets-lounge-y take on Sinatra, with a big band, which rang a bit flat as a finale. Thankfully, the still jazz-hungry among us late on Sunday night could drift over to the Dizzy’s Den venue, where Eric Harland’s Voyager (featuring young guitarist sensation Julian Lage, in a more rock and atmospheric mode than usual for him) was cooking up grooves and fresh jam-jazz recipes—the actual final sounds of the festival.

As is often the case in Monterey, there were cross-pollinations and context-switching moments throughout the festival. Ace drummer Harland, who played with Charles Lloyd’s quartet as well as the Lloyd-led worldly trio Sangam, also helmed his band Voyager. Conceptually-fortified trumpeter and all-around artist of note Akinmusire, whose band injected some powerful new jazz poetry into the Night Club venue on Sunday (quite possibly the strongest show of the entire festival), could also be heard in the gathering of young Blue Note artists (also including Robert Glasper, Marcus Strickland, Lionel Lueke, Derrick Hodge and Kendrick Scott) called Our Point of View, to celebrate Blue Note Records’ 75^th birthday. Akinmusire showed up again as a cameo guest artist for Billy Childs’ Laura Nyro homage, on the main stage.

Fine pianist Aaron Diehl lent his elegant touch to Salvant’s band, but he was a featured—and commissioned guest—as leader of his own group on the main stage on Saturday. There, he laid out his own aesthetic elegance as a leader, but also pay a respectful nod to a major influence, John Lewis (who was, for a quarter century, musical director of the Monterey festival, from its early days), in a commissioned twenty-minute piece called "The Three Streams of Expression.” In that work, clean-burning bebop and Baroque elements got along nicely, in keeping with the formidable—and formal-ish-- Lewis/MJQ tradition.

Another Monterey-referential blast from the historical past came when Lloyd played the main stage, for his first appearance here since 2006. The set included his definitive tune, "Forest Flower,” which created a huge sensation and popularity ripples when his original band, with Keith Jarrett performed on this very stage back in 1966. There is no avoiding the circular massage of history and echoes of the past when in Monterey, partly by its own programming design and partly because the festival itself has been woven into the very fabric of how jazz has evolved over the past half-century and change.  

In its 57^th annual edition, the Monterey Jazz Festival once again proved its worth and staked its claim as the finest and most balanced jazz festival on the west coast, and one of the best in the world. While in the throes of the dense three-day circus, you can get swept up in the heat and the action of all the stimuli. Looking back over notes and the marked-up map of the schedule, you realize that, at least in some degree, you have just been given a lesson in what jazz is all about at this moment—and in eras past.