" data-original-title="" title="">Gregory Porter channeled one of the aspects which make him special in the jazz pantheon, as spirit mover with gospel roots, and with show biz instincts in tow. Launching into his moving, swaying anthem "No Love Dying" as an encore for his festival-closing set, Porter invoked the classic "lighter" moment clause in concert behavior, with thousands of listeners waving their cell phone flashlights in the night sky while singing along to the refrain.

What could have been cloying or a clich�� somehow transcended into the stuff of cathartic togetherness of the type only live music can inspire, at a time when we're still in a honeymoon with the experience of live music at all.

On another grander scale, catching the Monterey Jazz Festival, in its 65th anniversary edition and its second program since the COVID-mandated 2020 lockdown/meltdown, delivered its own cathartic impact. The oldest continuous jazz festival on the planet and the best jazz gathering on the west coast continued with the long tradition established especially during current director Tim Jackson's lead, with a carefully-curated and balanced feast of acts both commercial and adventurous. The goal here seems to be laying out an agenda which somehow conveys the current state of jazz, from many angles, while also making the numbers work and satisfying the divergent tastes of a jazz audience grown both more fragmented and more eclectic-eared.

Among the "mainstream" category this year were