The First Monterey Jazz Festival

• 1950s, Music • 4799 Views • 1 Comment on The First Monterey Jazz Festival

As we’ve mentioned before in our Play Misty For Me post, sitting in the audience of the first ever Monterey Jazz Festival in 1958 is a young man called Clint Eastwood. He loved the festival so much he later used it as a film location for his directorial debut and also joined the board of directors.

The Monterey Jazz festival is held at the County Fairgrounds during the the third week of September. At the first one artists such as Billie Holiday, Cal Tjader Sextet, Art Farmer, Milt Jackson, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Max Roach and the Modern Jazz Quartet performed. Also, two trumpeters from different ends of the jazz spectrum played that weekend, check out Dizzy Gillespie paying his respects to Louis Armstrong when they met on stage.