Monterey Jazz Fest Expands Seating, Adds Fourth Stage

Dizzy’s Den, a new stage named for the late jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and expanded seating for the perennially sold-out Monterey Jazz Festival will be among the highlights of this year’s event, which takes place Sept. 15-17 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds.

“We’re really looking forward to the additional performance space--our fourth, along with the Night Club, the Garden Stage and the Main Arena--that Dizzy’s Den will provide, and we’re especially pleased with the fact that we can now offer comfortable bleacher-style seating in the Main Arena,” said Tim Jackson, the festival’s general manager.

The changes will add 250 to 300 new seats to the festival, which usually attracts about 39,000 people.

The 38th annual installment of the venerable event also includes a number of other new developments. Among them: The U.S. Postal Service will launch its set of “Jazz Masters” commemorative stamps at the Main Arena on Sept. 16. The 10-stamp issue honors pianists Eubie Blake, Erroll Garner, James P. Johnson, Thelonious Monk and Jelly Roll Morton, saxophonists John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker, bassist Charles Mingus and trumpeter Louis Armstrong.

Stamp folios purchased at the festival will receive first-day cancellations, and will include a free Warner Bros. CD of “cover” versions of songs made famous by the honorees, interpreted by several current players.

The headliners in the Main Arena are the John Scofield Quartet with Eddie Harris on Sept. 15, Maria Schneider’s New York City-based Big Band, violinist Stephane Grappelli and the Chick Corea Quartet on Sept. 16, the Lee Ritenour-Dave Grusin All-Stars on the afternoon of Sept. 17, and Toots Thielemans’ Brasil Project and Bobby McFerrin with Bang! Zoom on the evening of Sept. 17.

* The Monterey Jazz Festival at the Monterey Fairgrounds, Monterey , Sept. 15-17. Further ticket information: (800) 307-3378.