TERENCE BLANCHARD

Trumpeter TERENCE BLANCHARD, a leading musician of his generation, won a Grammy® Award for “Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album” for A Tale Of God's Will (A Requiem For Katrina) on February 10, 2008. He premiered the Requiem at MJF/50 in September 2007. Terence has additionally won the 2005 Grammy® Award for “Best Jazz Album,” and has been nominated for five other Grammys® and the Grand Prix du Disque. Blanchard has written over 40 film scores, including Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Inside Man, and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. His compositions have received many other Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
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NNENNA FREELON

Vocalist NNENNA FREELON is a multiple Grammy® Award-nominee, earning her sixth nomination with the 2005 release Blueprint of a Lady: Sketches of Billie Holiday on the Concord label. Nnenna is the 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 wrote of her that “there is no doubt that Freelon has now positioned herself in the very top echelon.”
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BENNY GREEN

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 Protégé Prize in Music. Green started with MJF as part of the Monterey Jazz Festival High School All Star Big Band.
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JAMES MOODY

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, he 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.
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DERRICK HODGE

First noticed in high school garnering the Berklee College of Music’s Outstanding Soloist Award in 1996 and 1997, bassist 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 others. Also a composer, he has written for artists such as Terence Blanchard and Q-Tip.
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KENDRICK SCOTTrtis

Drummer KENDRICK SCOTT began his relationship with MJF playing with the Berklee/Monterey Quartet, and has gone on to perform with such artists as Terence Blanchard, Kenny Garrett, Stefon Harris, and Joe Lovano. He received the 1999 Clifford Brown/Stan Getz fellowships from IAJE and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. He released his debut CD, The Source, in 2007.
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