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Rock/blues guitarist, B.B. King, performs on the main stage during the Monterey Jazz Festival, Saturday, September 16, 1967. The lineup during the 1967 Monterey Jazz Festival took a decidedly harder edge with such groups as Big Brother & the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin, which rocked the Saturday crowd. Years later Jimmy Lyons would admit that he submitted to pressure to include rock groups and that more patrons were alienated than attracted to the Monterey Jazz Festival from the “new” music.
I attended the festival and Woody Herman and his thundering hurd, Dizzy Gillesppi, Milt Jackson and the Modern Jazz Quarted, and Mel Torme. Mel was the last performer...he bought the house down with his velvet fog voice. It was a great performance enjoyed by all. Dizzy Gillesppi was a major disappointment by his basically sitting down on the stage, mute, and then momentarily standing up to play briefly and promptly sit down again. His playing time was measured in single minutes, sometimes seconds. I was actually angry with his self important nonsense. Woody was excellent and so was Milt Jackson. But again, the man who carried the night was Mel Torme....an unforgetable experience while I was stationed at Fort Ord, California. Hunter Ligette base. I missed the 67 Monterey Pop Festival but this helped ease the pain. The Editor of DownBeat Mazagine was there .
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