University of Florida Performing Arts

There will be a pre-performance discussion at 6:45 p.m. 

To read the program, click here.

The Monterey Jazz Festival is not only the longest continually-running jazz festival in the world, it is the best jazz festival in the world.  Celebrate 50 years of musical genius with this generation’s biggest artists including Terence Blanchard, James Moody, Benny Green, Derrick Hodge, Kendrick Scott and guest vocalist Nnenna Freelon.

Read about the History of the Monterey Jazz Festival

Terence Blanchard Web Site
James Moody Web Site
Benny Green Web Site
Derrick Hodge Web Site
Kendrick Scott Web Site
Nnenna Freelon Web Site

Brief Bios

Terence Blanchard is one of the leading musicians of his generation. His won the 2005 Grammy Award for “Best Jazz Album” and has been nominated for four other Grammy Awards and for the Grand Prix du Disque. Blanchard has written over 40 film scores, including Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, Malcom X, and 25th Hour, and has received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his compositions.

At the age of twenty-four, pianist Benny Green, became a key member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and went on to play with such artists as Freddie Hubbard, Ray Brown, and Oscar Peterson. In 1993 Peterson chose him as the first recipient of the City of Toronto’s Glenn Gould International Protege Prize in Music. Grenn started with MJF as part of the Monterey Jazz Festival High School All Star Big Band.

First noticed in high school garnering the Berklee College of Music’s Outstanding Soloist Award in 1996 & 1007, Derrick Hodge has gone on to perform and record with numerous artists including Terence Blanchard, Mulgrew Miller, Kanye West, Clark Terry, Freddy Cole and many other. Also a composer, he has written for artists such as Terence Blanchard and Q-Tip.

One of the true jazz legends, versatile reedman James Moody has been sharing his amazing musical genius with audiences for over five decades. In the mid-40s, James joined the seminal bebop big band of Dizzy Gillespie, in the mid-50s, he had a huge hit with “Moody’s Mood for Love”, and in 1998, Moody received the Jazz Master Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Moody will be Grand Master of the show.

Six-time Grammy Award-Nominee Nnenna Freelon’s most recent release is the Grammy-nominated Blueprint of a Lady: Sketches of Billie Holiday on the Concord label. Nnenna is winner of the Eubie Blake Award, and was twice nominated for the “Lady of Soul” Soul Train Award. Don Heckman of the Los Angeles Times wroteof her that “there is no doubt that Freelon has now positioned herself in the very top echelon”.

Kendrick Scott began his relationship with MJF playing with the Berklee/Monterey Quartet, and has gone on to perform with such artists as Terrence Blanchard, Kenny Garrett, Stefon Harris,  and Joe Lovano. He received the 1999 Clifford Brown/Stan getz fellow-ships for IAJE and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. His newest CD, Kendrick Scott Oracle, is due out this Fall.