“The attitude toward live music and presence of the live music makes it special,” Orr said. “It’s really laid-back and very much a family reunion every year, when people been coming for decades.”

Aside from the festival itself, which will be held in September, MSU will play host to the Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour 55th Anniversary Celebration. The annual nationwide tour will come to MSU for the first time Wednesday at Wharton Center.

“For the Wharton Center festival, we wanted to put people together who have a long history and represent what the festival is all about,” Orr said. “They represent the state of jazz today and have a close connection with the Monterey Jazz Festival.”

The lineup for the tour includes Flint, Mich., native Dee Dee Bridgewater, who has won three Grammy Awards and will play Billie Holiday in the off-Broadway’s upcoming show, “Lady Day.”

“A lot of young jazz singers see her as an influence now,” said Danny Melnick, the producer of the Monterey Jazz Festival tour. “Dee Dee is one of the top three or four jazz singers in terms of size of the performance … she’s someone who could carry a whole night in a concert hall more so than an opening artist, and there aren’t a lot of jazz singers right now that can do that.”

The tour will be conducted by Rodney Whitaker, the director of jazz studies in the MSU College of Music. Whitaker has become known at MSU and across the country as a top performer, which Wharton Center’s Public Relations Manager Bob Hoffman said put him on the radar.

“Within the College of Music, a lot of people have come to follow Rodney and his group,” Hoffman said.

To keep a finger on the pulse of East Lansing’s music scene, Hoffman said it seemed logical to showcase the tour for East Lansing’s jazz presence.

“It made sense to get them here since many of the performers have come here before,” Hoffman said. “Jazz is a popular genre at Wharton Center, and we try to reference what the community wants. There are a lot of jazz lovers here.”