artist info

Each year, The Monterey Jazz Festival brings together 21 of the most accomplished high school jazz musicians from across the country to form an all-star touring jazz orchestra. The

Next Generation Jazz Orchestra meets each summer to rehearse with Education Director Paul Contos before embarking on a domestic or international tour that includes performances at several well-known jazz festivals. The program culminates in a main stage performance in September at the Monterey Jazz Festival with MJF’s annual Artist-In-Residence.

Members of this flagship ensemble are selected through rigorous audition by name jazz artists and jazz educators through the Next Generation Jazz Festival. The big band is committed to the performance of the most cutting-edge repertoire currently written for jazz orchestra, as well as the most treasured legacy classics. Formerly the High School All-Star Band since 1971 and changed to the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra in 2004, the band has toured Japan 20 times, and annually perform at the world’s greatest jazz festivals: Jazz á Vienne, Montreal, Montreux, North Sea (Rotterdam), Noto (Japan), Toronto, Umbria(Italy), Vancouver, Victoria, and many locations including: Chicago, Dubrovnik (Croatia),

Los Angeles, Kansas City, Portland, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, New York, Paris (France), St. Louis, Washington D.C. (The Kennedy Center), Vienna (Austria) and many other cities.

Former members of the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra include pianists Benny Green, James Francies, Patrice Rushen, Kris Bowers, bassist Larry Grenadier, drummer Chad Wackerman, saxophonists Joshua Redman, Donny McCaslin, Mark Turner, Eric Marienthal, Ted Nash, and Dave Koz; trombonists Andy Martin and Luis Bonilla, flutist Elena Pinderhughes, trumpeters Ambrose Akinmusire, Gilbert Castellanos, Jonathan

Finlayson, and Adam O’Farrill, big band leader Gordon Goodwin, Alan and Mark Ferber, and a host of other respected jazz artists.