Monterey Jazz Festival’s Innovative Digital Music Education Project

Jazz Music Education for the Masses

My client, the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival (MJF) has launched an exciting new project, the Digital Music Education Project (DMEP) that uses the power of the Internet to bring jazz music education to the masses.

Besides hosting the hottest jazz concert each year, the Monterey Jazz Festival is a nonprofit organization that invests its resources in jazz music education programs, especially in the local public schools. But now thanks to MJF’s Digital Music Education Project, those educational opportunities are captured, digitized, and made available for free download by anyone in the world. Listen to today’s top jazz artists give advice to students or discuss their own musical influences from the DMEP website. “Master classes” taught by renowned jazz experts can be accessible by anyone via the Internet.

I am honored to have provided legal counsel to the Monterey Jazz Festival to enable this innovative project’s development; and you can also contribute to MJF’s jazz education program here.

MJF’s Digital Music Education Project launch coincided with the 50th year anniversary of the festival (Sept. 2007). Dave Brubeck, who performed at the first MJF festival in 1957, took center stage 50 years later to captivate the fair grounds yet again with his fingers on the ivory. Diana Krall, Sonny Rollins, Terence Blanchard, Gerald Wilson and hundreds of other jazz artists performed in the sold out jazz music extravaganza.

If you couldn’t make it to Monterey last September to sway to the jazz among the Redwoods, you can still catch the national tour of MJF’s 50th Anniversary Band, which ends in Michigan on 16 March 2008 (sans Redwoods). And the 51st Monterey Jazz Music Festival will be held 19-21 September 2008.