ABODE Not Your Grandfather's Festival

By Dan Shafer

The Monterey Jazz Festival (MJF) is celebrating its 50th anniversary, but is not content to rest upon its laurels but planners are making a number of changes as a way of improving this already excellent festival.

Lyons Lane is one of the changes that longtime festival goers will notice. The new space is named after Jimmy Lyons, one of the Festival's original founders. It will be located in a space behind the arena that was previously used for parking RVs. We're giving the space over to vendors who have some vision for the future. Some of the space will be devoted "green" environmentally conscious vendors. The location will be denoted by a large marquee and decorated with memorabilia and historic images from past Festivals.

The Festival Marketing Director, Paul S. Fingerote, calls Lyon Lane, "…the most exciting marketing development I've seen in my 25 years with the MJF."

Lyons Lounge, a DJ tent, will occupy a central place in Lyons Lane. It will be a space separate from the festival. Lyons Lounge will open only after dark and will provide a club-like atmosphere complete with a bouncer, a cool bar, couches, a dance floor, and a VIP area reserved for celebrities and special guests.

The term "DJ" is mis-leading for what will actually take place in Lyons Lane. The musicians will not simply be spinning tracks on turntables, but creating music that is composed of diverse source elements.

The lounge will feature two "turn-tabalists," Vinnie Esparza and DJ Logic, who create vivid non-traditional sounds by using processes of deconstruction and reassembly. They mix fragments from traditional jazz with bites and clips from other musical genres. They are extending the classic jazz style by synthesizing disparate musical elements in an unpredictable but not random fashion.

The process is almost like recycling because the musicians are using samples from old recordings to create a "mash-up" (to use their jargon) of styles including Cuban, psychedelic, acid rock, hip-hop, dance, and classical jazz music.

Even though the Lyons Lounge artists create sounds that differ from what people expect jazz to sound like, such a break with tradition is completely in harmony with the highest jazz traditions.

So when musicians in Lyons Lounge begin to bring diverse elements together in attempting to create a revolutionary - and possibly evolutionary - approach to music, they are simply taking next steps in a process that has been going on within the jazz community since the beginning.

The fact is that these guys really aren't doing experimental music. They are experimenting with sound and technology, but their music is decisive and not indeterminate, which is what you expect from music that is truly experimental. Also, they've been doing this for years. This is a mature sub-genre.

The Lyons Lounge sounds will be new for most of us because up to this point the music has been geared towards a younger audience. Lyons Lane will provide a gathering place for younger people, thus creating a legacy for future fans of the Festival, as well as meeting a real need for added space on the Festival grounds.

For more information about the Jazz Festival visit www.montereyjazzfestival.org.