We’re back from the 54th annual Monterey Jazz Festival where we were onsite at the Monterey Fair Grounds with a Mini-Amoeba store selling CDs, vinyl, posters, and special edition jazz t-shirts. We were also live blogging all about the amazing signings with jazz luminaries we hosted at our tent and making hundreds of new friends! Now it’s time to share the photos and great experiences we had withthe many heroes and their fans we met while out in Monterey.

There were several artists that made a huge splash at the festival and their albums flew off our Mini-Amoeba shelves directly after their performances. Friday night, pianist Hiromi gave two performances that blew the audiences’ socks off and created a weekend-long craze for her newest release, Voice. Another was Grammy-award winning singer/songwriter India.Arie who performed with Israeli artist Idan Raichel on Sunday. Their collaboration, Open Door, hasn’t been released yet, but you should check out their separate works, which were very popular at our tent. Bassist, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, and bandleader Richard Bona performed with guitarist, singer, and songwriter Raul Midon as the Duwala Malambo Project on Friday and Saturday, creating quite a stir for their back catalogue.

It’s Saturday, our second day at the 54th annual Monterey Jazz Festival where we are onsite with a Mini-Amoeba store! Our tent has been jumping with festival goers who can’t get enough of the pianist Hiromi, whose newest release, Voice, has been flying off our shelves after her two performances at the festival yesterday. It’s Hiromi Mania! If you’d like to check out the piano magic, check out her albums on our site. Other hot items at the Mini-Amoeba include Richard Bona’s Ten Shades of Blues and Raul Midon’s Synthesis. 


Today we have a full roster of signings and it’s sure to be an amazing day for fans, who will have the opportunity to meet their heroes inside the Mini-Amoeba tent.

Donny McCaslin -- 3:30pm
Jazz saxophonist Donny McCaslin got his start after attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, when he joined Berklee professor Gary Burton’s quintet, with whom he toured for four years. McCaslin moved to New York in 1991, working with bassist Eddie Gomez and then joining the group Steps Ahead, with whom he made the 1995 disc Vibe. McCaslin began to turn heads with his solo work in larger ensembles like Ken Schaphorst’s Big Band and Maria Schneider Orchestra, where his performance on the album Concert in the Garden received a Grammy nomination for “Best Jazz Instrumental Solo” in 2004.