This festival has been flooding the Monterey Fairgrounds site with jazz every September since 1958 when Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday topped the bill. This gives it this festival the distinction of being one of the world's longest running jazz festivals. The location has stayed the same, the 20 acre fairgrounds at 2000 Monterey Fairground Road, in a set up that includes stadiums, tents, smaller venues and outdoor stages and hosts about 500 top jazz artists for a long weekend of all kinds of jazz from the classics to the new stuff, and forays into similar blended genres like blues and funk. Considering the age of the festival and its singular prestige it's easier to talk about who hasn't performed for the Monterey Jazz Festival than who has.

Monterey Jazz Festival Website.

Written by  Ame P. Oliver.

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