Original decorative wrappers. 8.5 x 11”, 48pp. (Designed by Kent Diehl; Monterey, Oct. 1958) Extensively illustrated with photographs and drawings. Tipped in - scarce Festival promotional brochure, unfolding to 12 to 18”, with a Tentative Program, list of local hotels, and an order blank for seats.
Scarce memorabilia.
What was to become a legendary annual event – West Coast counterpart to the Newport Festival in the East – began at the Monterey Fair Grounds with a line-up of Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Ernestine Anderson, John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan, Harry James, Sonny Rollins, Cal Tjader, Dave Brubeck (who originally convinced the Monterey City Council to approve the gathering of 5,000 that would put Monterey on the Jazz map as “Newport of the West”), and comedian Mort Sahl as Master of Ceremonies.
The Program included feature articles on Holliday, Gillespie, Rollins, Jazz Symphony Orchestra conductor Gregory Millar, the financial problems that nearly doomed the project, and a two-page glossary of the “Argot of Jazz” that explained to the uninitiated the meaning of slang terms like “far out”, “hippy” and “scene” that would soon creep into the popular American lexicon.