Number 69
At 69, I travelled from London for the 69th running of the Monterey Jazz Festival. The first was in 1958, when I was one year old. The three days of music had a strong lineup, but I was there for the final evening to see three jazz legends, all in their late 80s, taking to a stage they had graced when I was still at primary school. Charles Lloyd, Herbie Hancock, and Ron Carter on one evening were a direct link to the classic era of Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, and other legends.
The site of the festival oozes history, and we spoke with so many people who saw this annual event as a pilgrimage. Several had attended for more than 25 years. One woman we chatted to proudly told us it was her fortieth Monterey Jazz Festival visit. Having experienced it, I understand why. This was another step in my being pulled towards music as reinvention.
Charles Lloyd Revisiting Forest Flower
A beautiful late-afternoon California sky greeted Charles Lloyd on the Jimmy Lyons arena stage as he reprised his 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival performance, where he recorded the live album ‘Forest Flower: Charles Lloyd at Monterey‘—sixty years on, the now 88-year-old saxophonist and flautist revisited his masterpiece. The original album sold over a million copies and, unusually for a jazz album, became a crossover success.
I had seen Lloyd in Umbria Jazz earlier in the year fronting a sublime quartet, and in Monterey he changed the lineup, with drummer Brian Blade, pianist Gerald Clayton, and Larry Grenadier on bass. That’s a formidable band. Lloyd has always had a knack for surrounding himself with younger players who push him. The music stays alive because he never plays it the same way twice.
Lloyd led the quartet through the Forest Flower suite, becoming a dynamo as it progressed, drawing the crowd into his mesmeric sax solos. Flipping to the second side of the recording, the band dug deeper and layered their distinct voices over the music, with Lloyd taking them into an almost trance-like musical state.
I looked around the arena and saw people transfixed. The crowd had been noisy – too noisy – at the start of the set, but as Lloyd layered his notes and phrases so richly, weaving them in an impossibly complex matrix, people hushed.
Early in the performance, Lloyd would take a seat next to the piano between his solo work, but as the set progressed, he walked the stage more. Standing next to Clayton’s keyboard, encouraging him; gesturing to the ever-smiling Blade as he went from a whisper to a storm in one phrase; nodding to Grenadier, beckoning him to bring it on.
Lloyd’s funky, jerky dance in the final bars reflected the joy the crowd were feeling. I hope someone, somewhere, recorded this performance.
Herbie Hancock & Ron Carter
The sun had given way to a creamy full moon, and the temperature had dropped many degrees by the time Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter took to the stage. Monterey Jazz Festival artistic consultant Jason Olaine’s introduction promised a one-of-a-kind performance: “So, if you weren’t here, you weren’t here…”
Herbie and Ron were part of the ‘Second Great’ Miles Davis quintet, along with Tony Williams on drums and, arriving in late 1964, the great Wayne Shorter. Now the duo were back together at Monterey, celebrating Miles’s 100th birthday, having performed here as part of the Miles Davis Quintet in 1963.
The black-clad 86-year-old Herbie and immaculately-suited 89-year-old Ron were trying something completely new in front of the packed arena.
“This is just bass and piano,” Hancock commented. “I haven’t done this before. I’m new to this.”
But they didn’t miss a beat, getting down to business with a rich take on “Autumn Leaves”. Their constant eye contact telegraphed the joy of their experience. Hancock’s speed, subtlety, and dexterity on the keys always stagger me. Carter’s smooth moves and agility up and down the neck left me slack-jawed at times.
They continued through the hard-bop classic “Walkin’” and then onto one of my favourites, “Footprints” by their former bandmate, the brilliant Wayne Shorter. Somewhere in this sequence, Carter said to the audience, “You’re going to have to guess which one this is.” After an extended pause, “Herbie’s trying to figure it out too,” he quipped with a playful smile.
Then Herbie pushed back from the keyboard, and Carter was alone. The opening notes were so plain, so bare, I didn’t place them at first. Then the arena caught up with him: “You Are My Sunshine.” A nursery song, the thing you sing to a child to send them to sleep. A ripple of laughter and recognition rose from the audience, then fell into deep silence as we soaked it in.
Moving from precise notes to bending strings, often caressing a string so quietly, then hitting one loudly and crisply, his fingers walking and then sliding the full length of the neck, Carter showed all his skills.
I’ve spent the past three years trying to make a double bass sound like anything at all, and I know how much work sits under a note that sounds effortless. Carter made it look as simple as breathing. Herbie sat still, his eyes closed, a smile on his face, appreciating his colleague.
As the final note drifted into the Monterey night, my eyes were damp—an 89-year-old man playing a lullaby under a full moon.
Herbie then hypnotised the audience with a solo “Maiden Voyage”, building intensity with some elaborate runs high on the keyboard, a smile playing on his face, his eyes somewhere else. The audience was rapt.
“Thank you for coming out and watching two old guys having fun,” Carter remarked, to the roar of the crowd.
The duo closed out the tribute to their old boss with “All Blues” before taking a bow, and then another, in front of a huge Monterey Jazz Festival standing ovation. Carter’s elegance and calm held, while Hancock gave a small skip and turned to the crowd one more time, hands raised over his head. Sixty-nine suddenly felt young.