The first Monterey Jazz Festival opened on October 3, 1958, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, but it had to pass an audition first. Disc jockey Jimmy Lyons, planning the event with the San Francisco Chronicle critic Ralph J. Gleason, brought the Dave Brubeck Quartet to play for the Monterey City Council before it voted on the festival’s permits. It voted yes. Local merchants had their own motive: the sardines that had kept Cannery Row working had collapsed a decade earlier, and the town needed tourists. Lyons raised start-up money by asking for $100 donations. Opening night, a chilly Friday, began with Dizzy Gillespie playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” unaccompanied and ended with Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars in front of about 5,000 people. Gillespie, emceeing, introduced Armstrong as “the king” and, by one account, knelt and kissed his hand. Armstrong, by Ricky Riccardi’s ear, spent the 80-minute set fighting his own chops.
Dave Brubeck, whose quartet played for the Monterey City Council to win the festival its permits, photographed in 1954. (Photo: Carl Van Vechten, Library of Congress; Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Sources: A Festival is Born (1958) — Monterey Jazz Festival (Brubeck Quartet played for the city council before the permit vote; merchants hoping tourism would offset the collapsed sardine industry; $100 donations; chilly Friday, October 3, Armstrong’s All-Stars closing opening night before 5,000; Gillespie kissing Armstrong’s hand, per author Bill Minor) , Monterey Jazz Festival — Wikipedia (debuted October 3, 1958, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds; co-founded by Jimmy Lyons and Ralph J. Gleason; Lyons brought Brubeck to perform for the city council to persuade it to allow the festival) , Monterey Jazz Festival Celebrates 60 Years — KQED (the 1958 festival opened with Dizzy Gillespie playing an unaccompanied “Star-Spangled Banner”; Lyons and Gleason convinced city leaders to back the plan) , Live at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival — Ricky Riccardi, The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong (October 3, 1958, opening night; about 5,000 in the audience; Gillespie’s introduction of “the king”; an 80-minute set with Armstrong struggling with his embouchure) , Cannery Row — Wikipedia (sardine population collapse after the war; canneries closing; street renamed Cannery Row in 1958)
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