The list of things Monterey is famous for is long and varied. Being the first capital of California is not the least of it, that’s for sure.

Depending on what melts your butter, as a college professor of mine loved to say, you could point to jazz music as being synonymous with Monterey because of the historical Monterey Jazz Festival, held at the Monterey Fairgrounds since 1958. Yet, that is not the reason that Los Angeles-born-and-raised jazz musician Gary Meek, 63, moved to the Monterey area 16 years ago.

“Straight up, my wife said she was moving to Monterey, and you’re welcome to join me,” Meek said laughing, adding it was for family reasons and he’s no dummy when it comes to making a good decision. “And it was at that point, in 2008, the scene in Los Angeles had really changed. The record business was gone, you could get everything for free, why pay for it? I was still working with (drummer) Dave Weckl a little bit. And (bassist) Brian Bromberg and keyboardist Jeff Lorber only occasionally. When I first moved up here I had to go back to L.A. every month to make ends meet.

“I said to myself in regards to Monterey, ‘What am I doing here? I don’t know what to do here.’ I never wanted to do the club scene. I did that when I was 20.”

When saxophonist Paul Contos was promoted to education director of the Monterey Jazz Festival, he needed someone to fill his role in the traveling clinicians. Meek took the job.

“From that I met all the local school teachers, met a lot of students,” Meek said. “Dennis Murphy School of Music opened maybe 13 years ago and that was a godsend for me. … When Dennis opened his school, I had 12 students within two weeks.”

Some of the names he mentioned may be familiar if you’re a fan of jazz fusion music. Meek’s upbringing provided for his pursuit of music from a very young age. Piano lessons before he was 5 and later he found reed instruments. He was clearly motivated to excel on piano, clarinet and saxophones as he went forward. In the early 1980s he played woodwinds in the big bands of the Los Angeles Jazz Workshop and local club dates. In the mid-1980s he toured with Dionne Warwick playing keyboards. Later he worked his way into becoming a session musician. His passion was to just play, to be a part of a band where he could stretch out and improvise and give it all he had, in contrast to playing parts he was assigned.

“I’ve played on over 200 records, but I’m not a studio musician per se. I never broke into that,” he said. “I met Airto (Moreira) and Flora (Purim), around 1987, I think. (Brazilian musicians who were members of the first Chick Corea: Return To Forever band, formed in 1972). I worked with them for over 20 years, off and on (and the three of them with Jose Neto, formed the band Fourth World in 1990 and toured the U.S., Europe, Asia, South Africa and Eastern Europe for five years). I produced two of Flora’s records. They’re like parents to me. They’re retired in Rio now. Flora is still working. Airto’s health has declined so he’s not active.”

In the years that followed, Meek joined Herb Alpert’s world tour in support of the “Second Wind” album, and he toured with Al Jarreau in the U.S. and Europe playing saxes, flute and keyboards. In a detour from his jazz work he recorded with American pop punk band Green Day on their sixth studio album Warning in 2000. It reached No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the RIAA. In 2003, Meek played woodwinds for the album Playful Heart by guitarist and bossa nova pioneer Oscar Castro-Neves. The release, named one of that year’s best albums by Downbeat magazine, included an arrangement of “Four Brothers” that Castro-Neves wrote to feature Meek on all the woodwind parts. Meek was later featured on Castro-Neves’ 2006 album, All One.

All the while Meek continued to develop his own music, releasing his first album as a leader and saxophonist in 1991, an 11-song all original self-titled record, and followed up with four more solo projects. Many of the aforementioned artists he’s worked have also contributed to his recordings, including the 2017 release Originals that featured drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, bassist Brain Bromberg, pianist Mitchel Forman, trumpet/flugelhorn player Randy Brecker, and guitarist Bruce Forman. A song he wrote for his wife, “Suite for Maureen,” featured Airto on percussion and local guitarist who currently tours with Barry Manilow, Mike Lent.

No wonder he didn’t know what to do with his work options when he got to Monterey. Not that he didn’t eventually meet and work with some of the best jazz musicians on the Central Coast. The project he’s currently most involved in, the Gary Meek Band, is making waves wherever they play, which includes Herb Alpert’s club Vibrato in Los Angeles and Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz.

It’s this Friday’s concert event that brought us together to talk. Alas, the show has already sold-out, the tickets still available at our sit down conversation last week got snatched up before the column’s publication. But it was way over due to have this talk. The Wendi Kirby Music Studio where the concert will be is in Monterey and is quite small, only seating about 60 or so people. There will be more shows to come, the next one locally in February at Wave Street Studios. Stay tuned for that future announcement. And on Nov. 24 the band will be at Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society in Half Moon Bay.

The Gary Meek Band plays music written by Meek, except for a song by Evan Lin and the George Harrison-written “Here Comes The Sun.” His last band was the Originals album grouping in 2017, but that was more of a one-off recording with an all-star band. This Central Coast grouping of players is the real deal, an eight-member ensemble who have now committed to be “in the band” and are making exquisite music that has been worked on and rehearsed with more than a few live dates to solidify its sound. The band is Meek on keyboards and just a little saxophone; Marina Panzetta, alto sax; Adam Astrup, guitar; John Nava, percussion; Dan Robbins, bass; Skylar Campbell, drums; Janice Perl and Miranda Perl, vocals.

“I just love these people, I really do,” Meek said. “I’m so lucky to have Skylar. He can do everything I need a drummer to do. He’s super soulful, super sensitive. Willing to take direction, totally willing to work hard and rehearse to get things down. That’s hard to find. That’s why I bring them all to L.A. with me. I could get a bunch of my famous L.A. friends to play with me, and a lot of people would show up, but it wouldn’t sound as good. Marina Panzetta, the saxophonist, was my student since she was 12 years old. She’s now 26. and a graduate of UCLA. She’s not a professional musician, per se. I pay her, so that makes her a pro, and she does some salsa gigs around L.A. But she’s a really good saxophone player.”

We didn’t get to all the musicians as our conversation often would veer into a connecting story that then went off into another direction. Meek is a great storyteller and he’s got a lot of them. He did tell me to check out the band’s music on YouTube, where you can hear a really great recording of the recent Kuumbwa Jazz Center gig. The band is smoking hot, tight as a drum, gorgeous beyond words.

Being a fan of fusion jazz, I could hear the quality of music that would come from The Yellowjackets, or Tom Scott and L.A. Express when Robben Ford was in the band. And that brings us to Astrup on guitar, a 26-year-old who came to town when he and his now fiancé Miranda Perl, a member of the Marotta family by way of her mother Janice, returned to the Peninsula from Colorado where they met while attending college. He developed his fusion chops by copying Mike Lent’s guitar parts on a recording that he and Meek worked on during the COVID downtime, which was the early formation of what this current band has become.“He got the sound, and he bought the gear, and he really stepped up. He’s a great soloist,” Meek said.

You’re going to have to stay tuned for another episode of Gary Meek’s big adventure on the Monterey Peninsula when there’s another gig to highlight. But for now, I’ll need to give you a quick hit section for other great shows this week.

The Sunset Center has its opening night concert for its Sunset Presents 2024-25 season Friday, 7:30 p.m. with jazz singer Michael Feinstein’s Tribute to Tony Bennett featuring the Carnegie Hall Big Band titled “Because of You.” Visit www.sunsetcenter.org for details and to grab a ticket if you can before it sells out.

The Golden State Theatre has two really good shows this weekend, the first Friday, 8 p.m. with Oteil & Friends featuring Dead & Co. bassist Oteil Burbridge, Melvin Seals, Steve Kimock, Jason Crosby, Johnny Kimock, Tom Guarna and Lamar Williams, Jr. The music will lift your soul, with a driving groove and jams that showcase top talents in the jamband scene. Tickets range $59.65 — $123.51. And Saturday, 8 p.m., its celebrated singer/songwriter Ben Folds on his Paper Airplane Request Tour. Lindsey Kraft opens the show, tickets range $61.71 — $127.11. Visit www.goldenstatetheatre.com to purchase advance tickets.