Music
29th Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival Celebrates Legacy and Education
The 18-piece Melton Mustafa Orchestra conducted by Melton Mustafa Jr, and featuring saxophonist Jesse Jones, headlines the 29th Annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival. (Photo by Jerome Louden)
The Annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival, celebrating its 29th edition with performances at various locations in South Florida from Thursday, Feb. 26 through Sunday, March 1, is in a class of its own. More than just a sampler of artists and styles, the event is also about “legacy, education, and nurturing future talent,” says festival director Melton Mustafa Jr., a three-times Grammy-nominated musician, educator, and bandleader.
The event includes small-venue shows, workshops, masterclasses, and a closing red-carpet concert at Florida Memorial University’s Lou Rawls Center for the Performing Arts.
The Melton Mustafa Orchestra conducted by Melton Mustafa Jr, left, and featuring Jesse Jones. (Photo by Jerome Louden)
Headliners include Grammy Award–winning producer and steelpan master Leon “Foster” Thomas, saxophonist Jesse Jones Jr., singer and violinist Nicole Yarling; pianist and organist Doug Carter; James Cotman, the original drummer of the Melton Mustafa Orchestra; vocalist Gia Wyre; pianist and keyboardist George Tandy Sr., bassist Kirk Green, and reedman and Melton Mustafa Jr. conducting the 18-piece Melton Mustafa Orchestra.
This year’s event will honor the memory of Esaa Mustafa, Zakiyyah Mustafa, trumpeter, bandleader, and educator Melton Mustafa Sr., and musician, steel pan scholar, composer, and educator Dawn Batson, PhD. As part of this jazz homecoming weekend at Florida Memorial University, the event will feature performances by the FMU Alumni Steel Pan Ensemble and the FMU Jazz All-Stars.
This year’s Annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival will honor Dawn K. Batson, PhD., and her remarkable career as a musician, composer, and educator which spans more than 40 years. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
“My dad was a Miami native. He grew up in Liberty City, attended Miami Northwestern, where he participated in the band, and then went on to Florida A&M University to study music,” recalled Mustafa Jr. After college, he notes, his father went on the road, playing with the Count Basie’s, Duke Ellington’s, and Woody Herman’s orchestras, and backing artists such as Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles.
Mustafa, who died of prostate cancer in 2017, went on to build a notable career highlighted by stints with Sam & Dave, Betty Wright, and Latimore, as well as his work with saxophonist Ira Sullivan’s group and bassist and composer Jaco Pastorius’s fabled Word of Mouth large ensemble.
“He was touring all over the world, playing with great jazz musicians, and he wanted to bring them to South Florida,” says Mustafa Jr. “He wanted to bring them to his students at Florida Memorial. I mean, can you imagine being a student and having the best saxophone player in the world giving you a lesson, sitting right next to you? It’s life-changing.”
Three-times Grammy-nominated musician, educator, and bandleader Melton Mustafa Jr. has taken the mantle of director of his late father’ Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival, celebrating this year its 29th edition. (Photo by Jerome Louden)
With the support of Albert Smith, PhD, a jazz enthusiast and president of what was then called Florida Memorial College, now Florida Memorial University, and Alfred Pinkston, PhD, former Chairperson of Music at the university, Mustafa Sr. started the festival in 1996 as a fundraiser for college and high school jazz students.
For that first edition festival, Mustafa Jr. recalls luminaries such as saxophonists James Moody and Grover Washington Jr., and bassist Abraham Laboriel. “I remember that the concert was held at the gymnasium of the school (in Miami Gardens), and it was packed to capacity. It was absolutely amazing.” The festival has since featured top jazz artists such as Wallace Roney, Patrice Rushen, Billy Cobham, Herbie Mann, Billy Taylor, Clark Terry, and Randy Brecker.
Still, the Annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival has remained a family and community affair with a strong focus on education. That is reflected not only in the programming. A portion of festival proceeds supports MSM Arts United, Inc., the festival’s nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding access to music education in underserved communities. Proceeds help establish an endowed music scholarship for talented, at-risk youth pursuing the arts.
Grammy Award–winning producer and steelpan virtuoso Leon “Foster” Thomas, who has music degree from Florida Memorial University and Florida International University, returns to South Florida to appear at the 29th Annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival. (Photo by Leon “Foster” Thomas)
Family was an essential element in the foundation and development of the festival, and the spirit remains. This year’s event honors Mustafa Jr.’s late son, Esaa, a budding musician who also contributed technical support, photography, and videos to the festival, and Mustafa Jr.’s mother, Zakiyyah, “the one who made everything happen.”
“My father would be the creative, come up with an idea, and they would discuss it, and she would figure out how to get it done,” recalls Mustafa Jr. “She dealt with the business part, did the logistics, paid the musicians, booked the hotels. She did all the heavy lifting.”
As for recognizing the work of Batson, “she’s an awesome composer, arranger, and director, and on top of that, she has been a great educator,” notes Mustafa Jr. Among her achievements in a career spanning more than four decades, Batson established the first steel band programs at the University of Miami and Florida Memorial University.
Batson, whose PhD is in music, business, and international affairs from the University of Miami, is currently the executive director of the consulting organization Keep Your Joy and Rise, specializing in national and international music programs. She works with teachers, musicians, and artists in other disciplines, “looking at how they can utilize their gifts, their art, and the talents that they’ve honed over years in many different capacities,” she explains. “Sometimes we don’t realize that the work that artists do can be utilized in other spheres.”
Melton Mustafa Jr. performs. (Photo by Jerome Louden)
“As musicians and artists, your music, your art is your business,” she elaborates. “But for someone playing a drum on an elementary school band, or a student learning for the first time how to play the clarinet, the lasting lessons are the discipline, the resiliency, it’s the working with others, it’s understanding how to communicate with others.” These are not just music lessons, she says, but “life lessons.”
For all the accolades she has earned in her many roles as a player, composer, and scholar, when asked about her favorite work, Batson doesn’t hesitate.
“Teaching is one of the highest disciplines that one can aspire to,” she says. “Because in teaching, you get to touch the future. And that is a gift. That is a gift.”
WHAT: 29th Annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival Weekend
WHEN and WHERE: 7 to 9 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 26, Lorna’s Caribbean & American Grill, 19752 NW 27th Ave., Miami Gardens. Kickoff performance featuring the Jesse Jones Jr. Quartet with special guests.
8 to 10 p.m., Friday, Feb. 27, The Gardens Cigar & Whiskey Lounge, 19801 NW 27th Ave., Miami Gardens. Performance by the Funk Jazz All Stars;
8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 28, Marshall L. Davis Sr. African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, 6161 NW 22nd Ave., Miami. Student Workshops and College Jazz All-Star Concert featuring student workshops, band performances, lunch with food trucks, jazz workshops with guest artists, Florida Memorial University Jazz Ensemble (Director: Dr. Zachary Bartholomew), and the Broward College Big Band (Director: Waldron Dunkley). 6 to 9 p.m., Miami Lakes Hotel-Courtyard, 6842 Main St., Miami Lakes. Performances by DEB’I United and Jerald Dorsett & Friends.
5 to 9 p.m., Sunday, March 1, Lou Rawls Performing Arts Center, Florida Memorial University, 15800 NW 42nd Avenue, Miami Gardens. Red carpet and VIP reception with New World SOTA Jazz Ensemble, MMJF Concert Part I featuring FMU Alumni Chorale, FMU Steel Pan Ensemble, and FMU Jazz All-Stars, followed by MMJF Concert Part II concluding with the Melton Mustafa Orchestra and guest artists.
COST: $55.20, red carpet event and concert Sunday, March 1; $87.21, red carpet, VIP reception and concert, Sunday, March 1. Tickets at eventbrite.com/e/29th-annual-melton-mustafa-jazz-festival
INFORMATION: Details on other festival events and information at meltonmustafajazzfestival.com
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