The scoop on the Monterey Jazz Festival.

So I finally made it to the Monterrey Jazz festival.  I was so excited as
this is supposed to be THE FESTIVAL!  My Dad and Mom were regular attendees for many years, back in the day.  While there I met many attendees that had been going for 30 years plus.  So then why is it that I found it to be a very irritating festival?  Is it because I didn't quite understand how it worked?  Here is my problem.  If you want to see  the main performers you have to buy what is called "Arena seats.  This is the main stage in the festival and has assigned seating. If you want a good seat in the arena you have to, have been going for a while, as the long time fans get to have their same seat yearly or an upgrade as others drop off.  Doing my research ahead of time I knew that to really have a great experience with the heavy hitters I needed to buy our Arena Ticket from someone on Stub Hub that had good seats.  This worked out really well as when we got into festival and over to the Arena our seats were awesome..  We were about 20 rows back center.  So now I am excited as I think I get to see some greats performances up close for the whole day.  Naomi Shelton, Trombone Shorty,Billy Childs Quartet, Dianne Reeves and Chick Corea.  Well boy was I wrong.  Here is how it works.  They split up the day into two categories.  Day time shows and night time shows. When I bought my ticket it was for daytime shows only.  (The 1st two bands I listed above) and I had no idea.  If you want to go to night time shows, that is a whole other ticket.  The worst part is, the daytime Arena shows and Billy Childs went to the garden stage to play after they were done at the Arena.  You don't pay extra for those tickets. You have to get to that stage way before they start but I will go into that later.  Now in between the daytime and nighttime shows there is a 2 hour break where none of the 5 stages have anything.  Does this sound confusing to you?  That's because it was.  Because we missed Naomi Shelton at the Arena, we pretty much paid way to much to see Trombone shorty at the arena and then our tickets were void.  We could have seen him 2 hours later for  free at the Garden Stage. Talk about feeling like a sucker.OK so I don't want this to happen to anyone else so here is what I learned from my experience and from talking to some veterans.  Don't even bother with the daytime Arena tickets if you are buying from private party.  If you buy from festival you will get the whole day but your seats will be bad.  What you want to do is take a folding chair and get to festival in morning.  Set up your chair up front at the Garden Stage and just leave it there for the day.  This way you can come and go from that stage and see half of the performers from the Arena stage.  (The website actually recommends you don't bring a chair which is absolutely bad info.) In between the shows you want to see at Garden Stage, you can check out the other 3 smaller stages that have some cool surprises of up and coming or international performers.  As for what to do during the two hour break.  I don't know what to tell you.  I do know that if they just skipped the break you wouldn't be finishing up at 12:30 at night after a 12 hour day.  Oh well.  This is why I will stick to the playboy jazz festival..  It is so much better.  I think I will take Dr. Jazz's advice and check out Detroit's Jazz festival next.  He says its the best in US.

 Trombone Shorty was the highlight of day, just as he was at Playboy.  Watch out for this band of mid 20 year olds because they are on their way up the charts.

Does anyone know who this is?  She played with John Firman & the Nocturne Band.  She was not listed but man she had some outrageous pipes.  Loved her.

 This Woman has a band from Korea called Ritsuco Endo & FRV.  They were amazing  I think my husbands favorite.  They are contemporary Jazz but so good you just don't care if you are a straight ahead listener..

I know I didn't give this guy much credit on my 2010 playboy review but WOW. Jake Shimabukuro will blow you away as a one man show.  Truly breathtaking.

          The only other surprise was I got to hear one of my favorite piano players Gerald Clayton.  He used to play at my favorite little Jazz club but has now gotten to big.  Good for him.