Monterey Jazz Festival Going Strong at 40

The Monterey Jazz Festival is back. And, amazingly, it is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The event that began amid the West Coast jazz and Third Stream music of the late ‘50s is still hale and hearty in the fusion, funk and retro jazz of the ‘90s.

One of the most unusual special events at the festival--which runs from next Friday through Sept. 21--appropriately celebrates not only Monterey’s 40th, but another 40th as well. On Friday night, composer-pianist Dave Grusin conducts an all-star ensemble performing his arrangements of selections from the Leonard Bernstein musical “West Side Story,” to commemorate the 40th anniversary of its opening on Broadway.

“It’s funny,” said Grusin, “how this all came together, Monterey’s 40th, the ‘West Side Story’ 40th, almost in a symbiotic fashion, since I’d already been in touch with the Bernstein family through the Web site I have with N2K.”

Grusin and partner Larry Rosen, who established the highly regarded GRP (Grusin-Rosen Productions) Record Company, only to sell it off at the height of its success, came back in the business several years ago with N2K, a company that combines record production with high-tech cyber delivery systems. Grusin’s album version of “West Side Story,” which will be available the week of the Monterey festival, is one of the first jazz albums to be simultaneously released on CD and in the new DVD format.

“Since there were basically two 40th anniversaries,” continued Grusin, “it made a lot of sense to combine them. And we’re going to have a hot band at Monterey--guys from both New York and L.A., including Eric Marienthal, Bill Evans, Tom Scott, Jeff Clayton and Arturo Sandoval, with Patti Austin and Jonathan Butler doing the vocals.”

In addition to his “West Side Story” presentation, Grusin also will appear with actor-director Clint Eastwood on Saturday afternoon in a panel discussion about jazz and film.

This year’s Monterey program in the large arena, the Jimmy Lyons Stage, encompasses a typically broad-based, attractive lineup of talent, including Sonny Rollins, Diana Krall, Jim Hall, Don Byron’s “Bug Music,” Charlie Haden’s Quartet West, Arturo Sandoval and Ivan Lins.

Also featured in the festival’s four smaller venues (a new, Coffee House venue, has been added to the Garden Stage, Night Club and Dizzy’s Den) are the Charlie Hunter Group, Marcus Roberts and Benny Green. On Sunday night, the Gerald Wilson Orchestra will premiere a commissioned work written by Wilson to celebrate the 40th anniversary (Wilson also composed a work for the festival’s 20th anniversary).

In further celebration of Monterey’s 40th, a large, coffee-table book--”Monterey Jazz Festival: Forty Legendary Years” (Angel City Press), an attractive history of the event, replete with dozens of rare photographs--will debut at the festival on Sept. 19, with general availability on Oct. 15. Information: (800) 307-3378. Web site:

https://jazzcentralstation.com/montereyjazzfestival.

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Jazz Tribute: The Los Angeles Jazz Society’s 15th annual Jazz Tribute and Awards Dinner/Concert takes place Sunday at the Regal Biltmore Hotel, 506 S. Grand Ave., starting at 4:30 p.m. The event honors vibist Terry Gibbs, who will return the favor with a performance by his quartet. Other winners of the society’s various annual awards are trumpeter Snooky Young, singer Joe Williams, bassists Charlie Haden and Danton Boller, arranger Van Alexander, disc jockey Ken Borgers, photographer Ray Avery and L.A. Cultural Affairs Department General Manager Adolfo Nodal.

In its 12 years of existence, the society has been an active proselytizer for jazz and jazz education in Los Angeles.

Its Jazz Caravan program has been bringing first-rate, free jazz concerts to L.A. city schools for nearly a decade. Jazzgiving, a program to acquire, restore and distribute instruments to needy schools, has thus far made donations valued at $150,000. And the Bill Green Mentoring Program, scheduled to begin in 1998, will select talented young musicians for mentoring connections with professional artists with established teaching skills. Info: (213) 469-6800 or (818) 347-3046.

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Anniversary: Enja Records, one of Europe’s most diverse and prolific jazz labels, will commemorate its 25th anniversary next week with a series of concerts in New York City jazz clubs featuring such current Enja artists as the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, Bobby Previte’s Latin jazz ensemble, pianist Jonny King’s quartet and the U.S. debut of jazz oud player Rabih Abou-Khalil. The company (whose name is an anagram for European New Jazz Assn.) has released avant-garde and world fusion jazz, as well as classic items by Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy.

Enja founder Matthias Winckelmann points out that his approach to jazz production reflects his European view of the art.

“There is a traditional way of thinking about the arts in Europe,” he says, “and jazz fits into that conception: something that is durable, that will stand the tests of time and enrich all our lives.”

It is a view that might productively be considered by more American jazz label heads.

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Free Jazz: The Billy Higgins Quartet and the Young World Stage All-Star Quartet perform Thursday at the California Plaza in a “Summer Nights at MOCA” concert, 250 S. Grand Ave., 5 p.m.