Monterey All-Stars
Enjoy the Entire Show
About the Monterey All-Star Show
I got a call from Andy Weis six months before the Festival, asking me if I would like to be part of a Monterey artist gathering for the 50th Monterey Jazz Festival. Of course I agreed, and the next few months became a convoluted mix of managing, arranging, grouping and re-grouping so everybody had a decent amount of stage presence. Rehearsals at CSUMB were a joyous reunion of some of Monterey’s finest musicians and vocalists, culminating in the show you can see here.
Much work went into this show, both in the production and performance as well as the creation of the videos. I hope you enjoy these moments half as much as we enjoyed creating them.
About the Making of the Videos
Minimalist Creation
This was an interesting challenge – to create a 90-minute video with less than 12 minutes of original video from the event, and most of that of poor quality and less-than optimum position (much of the live video comes from the backstage entrance, and only the drummer and bassist are visible! Most of the rest is from standard hand-held cameras set to video mode.) I should mention this is all in old-fashioned 4:3 mode, like standard television – no widescreen or HD.
There were simply not enough photos for all the songs, so I had to reuse them more often than I like. But the performances were all first-rate, so I did it anyhow. Thank goodness for Ken Burns and Sony Vegas 6.0…
The audio came directly from the stage mixing console, and isn’t that bad – except there was a -30dB filter at 200 Hz across the entire show that cut the bass to virtually inaudible. I had to try and ‘undo’ the filter, with less than perfect results. (This is not a swipe at the sound techs, it’s necessary wind noise prevention – but it makes it hard to get a good audio track.)
Personnel:
- Lee Durley: Vocal
- Ali Ryerson: Flute
- Kenny Stahl: Flute
- Paul Contos: Alto Sax
- Gary Regina: Alto Sax
- Roger Eddy: Tenor Sax
- Paul Tarantino: Bari Sax
- Brian Stock: Fluegelhorn
- Lauri Hofer-Romero: Vocal
- Dottie Dodgion: Vocal
- Bob Phillips: Piano
- Jan Deneau: Piano
- David ‘Dasher’ Kempton: Keyboards
- Steve Ezzo: Guitar
- Dan Robbins: Bass
- Dennis Murphy: Electric Bass
- Andy Weis: Drums
