C.B. HANIF PHOTOS / SOUTH FLORIDA TIMES

Miami – The posters on the wall of Miami’s Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater tell a tale of African American musical excellence through the years in South Florida, right up to Sunday’s 28th annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival.

Founded by the internationally acclaimed late trumpeter, composer, band leader and Florida Memorial University Jazz professor Melton Mustafa, and now being continued by his family, notably his son, Melton Mustafa Jr., himself a three-time Grammy nominated saxophonist and music educator, the event still is going strong, thanks to supporters such as South Florida’s beloved Dr. Barbara Carey-Shuler (see story Page 1B).

The event this year celebrated yet another Miami legend, the famed late bassist Jaco Pastorius, through a riveting onstage performance by the Jaco Pastorius Big Band, which featured trumpeter Randy Brecker of the famed Brecker brothers, and bassists such as Gerald Veasley, channeling Pastorius. They followed the Melton Mustafa orchestra, led Mustafa Jr., and which featured his uncle, the renowned Jesse Jones Jr., along with primo vocalist LeNard Rutledge and others.

“There’s a lot of great festivals in town,” Mustafa noted, “but none of them are gonna be swinging this hard.”

Through the course of the evening, the master musicians proceeded to again prove him correct. With another perennial local favorite, Tracy Fields, serving as mistress of ceremonies, the concert-closing standing ovation proclaimed the evening a success.