2016 Next Generation Jazz Festival Now Accepting Applications

Monterey Jazz Festival, a leader in jazz education since its inception in 1958, is pleased to announce the 45th Annual Next Generation Jazz Festival (NGJF), featuring the nation's most talented middle, high school, and college jazz musicians and vocalists. The Next Generation Jazz Festival takes place in historic downtown Monterey from April 8-10, 2016. All events are free and open to the public.

Applications are now being accepted from middle school big bands; high school big bands, combos, vocal jazz ensembles and composers; conglomerate high school big bands and combos; and college big bands, combos and vocal jazz ensembles. The deadline for applications is January 15, 2016.

Interested schools and students should visit www.montereyjazzfestival.org for instructions on how to apply.

NGJF finalists are selected through recorded auditions reviewed by faculty from the Berklee College of Music. In addition, specially-invited groups perform in venues across downtown Monterey. In 2015, nearly 90 groups from across the United States attended the Next Generation Jazz Festival. Top groups win cash awards and are invited to perform at the 59th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival, September 16-18, 2016.

2016 NGJF finalists will be adjudicated by an all-star team of artists including pianist Shelly Berg; trombonist Luis Bonilla; drummer Terri Lyne Carrington; trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos; bassist Ray Drummond; guitarist Bruce Forman; tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm, and baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan.

NGJF judges and adjudicators will perform a free opening night concert on Friday, April 8, and will conduct clinics, teacher training workshops, jam sessions, and auditions in locations in historic downtown Monterey, including the Monterey Conference Center, the Portola Hotel, Turn 12 Bar & Grill, the Museum of Monterey, and more.

Auditions for the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra will also be held at the Festival. As Monterey Jazz Festival's premier touring student ensemble, this group tours domestically and internationally each summer, culminating in an Arena performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

The Next Generation Jazz Festival also includes a big band composition competition open to high school composers. Judged by college faculty from leading music schools across the country, the winning composer receives the Gerald Wilson Award and a cash prize, with the winning composition performed by the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

Introduced in 1971 as the California High School Jazz Band Competition by Monterey Jazz Festival Founder Jimmy Lyons, the NGJF was conceived as a way to bring talented student groups to Monterey, and to cultivate musicians for the future. The 2016 Next Generation Jazz Festival celebrates its 45th year as a landmark jazz education program for the Monterey Jazz Festival.

Terri Lyne Carrington Named as MJF's 2016 Artist-In-Residence

Monterey Jazz Festival also announces that the three-time GRAMMY-winning drummer, composer and producer Terri Lyne Carrington will be the festival's 2016 Artist-In-Residence, and will work year-round with young musicians in performances and clinics at the Next Generation Jazz Festival, Summer Jazz Camp, and at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

Carrington was born in 1965 in Medford, Massachusetts. After an extensive touring career of over 20 years with luminaries like Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Al Jarreau, Stan Getz, David Sanborn, Joe Sample, Cassandra Wilson, Clark Terry, Dianne Reeves, and more, she returned to Boston where she was appointed professor at her alma mater, Berklee College of Music. Terri Lyne also received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 2003.

After studying under full scholarship at Berklee, with the encouragement of her mentor, Jack DeJohnette, Carrington moved to New York in 1983. For five years she was a much-in-demand musician, working with James Moody, Lester Bowie, Pharoah Sanders, and others. In the late '80s she relocated to Los Angeles, where she gained recognition on late night TV as the house drummer for the Arsenio Hall Show, then again in the late '90s as the drummer on the Quincy Jones late night TV show, VIBE, hosted by Sinbad.

Carrington's production and songwriting collaborations with artists such as Gino Vannelli, Peabo Bryson, Dianne Reeves, Siedah Garrett, and Marilyn Scott have produced notable works as well, including her production of the Dianne Reeves GRAMMY-nominated CD, That Day, as well as Dianne Reeves GRAMMY Award-winning CD, Beautiful Life, in 2014.

Carrington has performed on many recordings throughout the '80s and '90s through today. Notable examples of her work include Herbie Hancock's GRAMMY Award-winning CD Gershwin's World, where she played alongside Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder. She has toured in many of Hancock's musical configurations (from electric to acoustic) and is featured on his Future2Future DVD.

Carrington returned in 2008 with More To Say...(Real Life Story: NextGen), and in 2011, Carrington released The Mosaic Project, her first on Concord Jazz. The critically-acclaimed CD won a GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and featured some of the most prominent female jazz artists of the last few decades: Esperanza Spalding, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sheila E., Nona Hendryx, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen, and several others.

In 2013, Carrington released Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue, her much-anticipated homage to Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Max Roach, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of their iconic 1963 Money Jungle album. The recording featured Gerald Clayton and Christian McBride, with guests Clark Terry, Lizz Wright, Herbie Hancock and others. Carrington made history when she became the first woman to win a GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.

In 2015, Carrington released The Mosaic Project: LOVE and SOUL, with a rotating cast of superb female instrumentalists and vocalists that includes Oleta Adams, Natalie Cole, Paula Cole, Lalah Hathaway, Chaka Khan, Chanté Moore, Valerie Simpson, Nancy Wilson, Jaguar Wright, and Lizz Wright, as well as saxophonist Tia Fuller, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen; bassists Meshell Ndegoecello and Linda Oh; and keyboardists Geri Allen, Patrice Rushen, and Rachel Z.

About Monterey Jazz Festival
The Monterey Jazz Festival celebrates the legacy of jazz, expands its boundaries, and provides opportunities to experience jazz through the creative production of performances and educational programs.