Music
The Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival: 28 Years Of Jazz, Education, and Community
Melton Mustafa Jr. leads the Melton Mustafa Orchestra on Sunday as part of The Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival. The festival culminates Sunday, March 2, with a tribute to Florida-born Jaco Pastorius at the historic Lyric Theater in Miami’s Overtown. (Photo by Jerome Louden-JML Photo Services)
The Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival, which celebrates its 28th edition from Friday, Feb. 28 to Sunday, March 2, is one of the most significant events in the South Florida jazz calendar. Throughout the years, it not only brought to the area headliners such as James Moody, Grover Washington Jr., Wallace Roney, Patrice Rushen, Billy Cobham, Herbie Mann, Billy Taylor, Clark Terry, and Randy Brecker but has had an impact as an educational and community event.
For the 10th consecutive year, the Black Archives is hosting the closing night concert at the historic Lyric Theater in Miami’s Overtown. The festival also includes events at local landmarks such as the Dunns-Josephine Hotel, the Lil Green House Grill, the Red Rooster Restaurant, and the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center.
Saxophonist Jesse Jones Jr., Melton Mustafa Sr.’s older brother, photographed performing at the 2022 concert, recalls how “The festival was a community family-type thing for him.” (Photo courtesy of Gregg Reed)
A highlight of this year’s Festival is the Sunday concert, a tribute to Florida-born Jaco Pastorius, a musician who had a transformational impact on 20th-century jazz as an electric bass player, composer, and bandleader. Guitarist Pat Metheny called him the “last jazz musician of the 20th century to have made a major impact on the musical world at large.”
But for the Mustafas, Pastorius was also a family friend.
“I had a unique childhood. I was privileged to be around famous musicians that I didn’t even know were famous, they were just my dad’s friends,” says Melton Mustafa Jr., who, as a director, has carried the festival forward after the passing of his parents, Melton and Zakiyyah Mustafa. “Jaco Pastorius used to come over to the house and practice with my dad and my uncle. He’d come over to the house and practice the blues, write music, play, talk, and watch TV, and it was just a good hang. And he did that often. I grew up with Jaco in the house. He wasn’t Jaco Pastorius. Not to me and my brothers. He was Uncle Jaco, a funny, funny guy who would laugh a lot and tell great jokes.”
Saxophonist Jesse Jones Jr., Melton Mustafa Sr.’s older brother, chuckles at the memory.
“Jaco has really been a part of our family for many years,” he notes. “He was a great musician.”
Jaco Pastorius and Peter Graves at a family event in 1978. The deep friendship and musical collaboration between Pastorius and Graves went back decades. (Photo courtesy of Peter Graves)
Bandleader and long-time Pastorius collaborator Peter Graves, who will conduct the Jaco Pastorius Big Band at Sunday’s concert, notes that “as good as Jaco was as a player, he was even better as a composer and arranger. I just wish people could hear the things he left unrecorded.” The Jaco Pastorius Big Band, featuring guests such as trumpeter Randy Brecker and bass players Gerald Veasley and Mark Egan, will revisit some of Pastorius’s classic compositions, including “Three Views of a Secret,” “Liberty City” and “Domingo,” as well as Pee Wee Ellis’s “The Chicken,” a Pastorius favorite workout.
As for the festival, Jones underscores how his brother emphasized the connection with the community and the educational components of his effort.
“The festival was a community family-type thing for him,” says Jones. “And my brother always wanted to incorporate kids, students from the beginning. He wanted to get a program where young musicians could be a part of the event, always. You’re teaching them not only music, but you’re teaching them about life.”
A trumpeter, bandleader, and educator, Melton Mustafa, who died in 2017 of prostate cancer, had a solid career on the bandstand and in the classroom. In the late 1960s, he worked with top soul acts such as Sam & Dave, Betty Wright, and Latimore, before becoming active in the jazz scene of Miami and joining saxophonist Ira Sullivan’s band. In the early 1980s, he played in Pastorius’s fabled Word of Mouth Band but also worked with classic outfits such as the Count Basie Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Woody Herman and His Orchestra, and with composer and educator Gunther Schuller.
Melton Mustafa Jr. with a painting of his father Melton Mustafa Sr. “My father loved Miami. He loved South Florida, the people, the community […] he wanted to include and involve as much of the community as possible.” (Photo by Jerome Louden/JML Photo Services)
“At the time, my dad was touring all over the world, playing with all these great jazz musicians, and he wanted to bring them to the South Florida area,” recalls Mustafa Jr., a three-time Grammy-nominated musician and active educator. “So, he basically got his friends and some of the musicians he played with to come down to Miami to do a jazz festival. He wanted to touch the students at Florida Memorial because they were so dear to him. He added that educational component so the students would have a chance to study or go to a workshop with these master musicians and learn directly from them.”
Melton Mustafa Jr. leads a rehearsal of the Melton Mustafa Orchestra at the Marshall Davis African Heritage Cultural Arts Center. (Photo by Jerome Louden/JML Photo Services)
For much of its history, jazz was an oral tradition, the rules of the road were learned on the bandstand. “That was the main thing that my brother wanted for the students,” says Jones. “Share his experience. Pass it on.”
As for community involvement, Mustafa Jr. recalls how his father “loved Miami. He loved South Florida, the people, the community. He was very active on different levels. And when starting this concert, which became a festival he wanted to include and involve as much of the community as possible. This started with the international artists — and then it spilled over.”
WHAT: 28th Annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival – “Tribute to Jaco Pastorius” Red Carpet Event and Festival Concert
WHEN: 5 to 6 p.m., Red Carpet event with Dr. Michale Krop Jazz Band under the director of Bringel Cidel, 6 p.m. Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival Concert and 7 p.m., Jaco Pastorius Big Band directed by Peter Graves, Sunday, March 2.
WHERE: Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater, 819 NW 2nd Ave., Miami
COST: $50, red carpet event and concert, $80 red carpet, VIP reception and concert. Tickets at https://MMJF28.eventbrite.com
INFORMATION: For details on other festival events and information, go to meltonmustafajazzfestival.com
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