Monterey Jazz Festival 1999

Friday Night

The Friday night show was particularly fantastic. Over the past few years they have been adding more and more Latin Jazz artists and this year Friday night was all latin night. But before we went to the arena, we stopped by the garden stage to catch a few Terrance Blanchard tunes (more from him later).

The arena show started out with Chucho Valdez, the piano player from the Cuban band Irakere (which has launched such greats as Arturo Sandoval and Paquito D'Rivera).

Next was on of my all time favorites, Poncho Sanchez.

Ramon Banda and Varrin

I got a chance to say hi to his tambale player, Ramon Banda, who I've played with before.

Los Van Van in action

The show closer was another Cuban band Los Van Van. They have a raging non-stop-maddness kind of style that got the audience going in a big way.