THE CENTRAL AVENUE JAZZ FESTIVAL


 


Every year for the past 17 years, during the last weekend in July, LA residents and visitors are treated to the preeminent jazz event on the West Coast with The Central Avenue Jazz Festival. It’s free and open to the public – last year, 35,000 attended. The focus, of course, is live music but there are also craft and food booths. I've been meaning to check it out in the past and this I year finally did.


LOCATION OF EVENT



A BRIEF BIT OF BACKGROUND ABOUT SOUTH CENTRAL


 
          Intersection of Malcolm X Way and MLK                                A Jazzy mural at Alondra's Bakery

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.

 As you have probably already heard, Amoeba is an official sponsor of the 54th annual Monterey Jazz Festival and is onsite with a Mini-Amoeba store! Tonight – Friday, September 16th at 8:00pm – we hosted the first of many of our scheduled signings and kicked it off with percussionist Poncho Sanchez and trumpeter Terence Blanchard!

Amoeba Music and the line of smiling fans were lucky to chat with Sanchez and Blanchard before they had to leave to gear up for their 11:00pm show on the Arena/Jimmy Lyons Stage where they will appear with their new project, Cubano Be Cubano Bop, a tribute to the legacy of the Original Conga King Chano Pozo and his co-conspirator in Latin jazz, Dizzy Gillespie.

Amoeba is overjoyed to be an official sponsor of the 54th annual Monterey Jazz Festival and to be onsite with a Mini-Amoeba store! We’ve been setting up for three days at the Monterey Fair Grounds and the doors have just officially just opened to the public. Business is already brisk at the Mini-
Amoeba as folks who have been standing in line for hours are streaming in through the gates to the sound of bands warming up and the delicious smoky smells of fair foods.

The Monterey Jazz Festival runs September 16th - 18th and we’ll be here everyday offering rare and popular CDs and vinyl, special edition jazz t-shirts, AND signings with some amazing artists!

Just check out this line-up!

Friday
Poncho Sanchez and Terence Blanchard -- 8pm

Saturday
Donny McCaslin -- 3:30pm
Mitch Woods -- 4:30pm
Soul Rebels & Kermit Ruffins -- 5:30pm
John Pizzarelli -- 7pm

Sunday
Joshua Redman -- 2:30pm
Vince Mendoza -- 3:30pm
Erik Telford -- 4:30pm
Wil Blades -- 5:30pm
Robert Glasper -- 6:30pm
Tia Fuller -- 7:30pm



Amoeba Music LIVE from the Monterey Jazz Festival