It's Thursday night, I've been pushing pixels and hacking code for seven days straight, and fragments and random impressions of last weekend's Monterey Jazz Festival keep careening around my brain like little Pachinko balls.

With that caveat, it's time to share a few highlights from this year's festival (my 23rd in a row, if you're counting):

• Most Transcendent Festival Moment(s): Fred Hersch in the Coffee House Gallery on Sunday night; the Kronos Quartet in the Night Club on Saturday night
   
• Most Outrageous Festival Showman: Trombone Shorty, who, from all accounts, TKO'd audiences in the Main Arena and the Garden Stage
   
• Top Seller from This Year's Festival: Trombone Shorty, who broke all previous sales records for CDs during the festival (thanks, Bethie)
   
• Largest Number of Musicians Ever Assembled on the Dizzy's Den Stage: Adam Theis and his Jazz Mafia's epic "Brass Bows & Beats": 45 — count 'em, four-tee-five — musicians and singers all crowded onstage. At one point, Theis leapt atop a stageside speaker cabinet for a trombone solo
   
• Best "What Decade Am I In?" Moment: Nellie McKay, all pretty in pink for her 1950s-vintage Doris Day tribute in the Night Club Friday night
   
• First Jazz Ukelele Player to Perform Onstage at Monterey: Jake Shimabukuro, who drew adoring fans to his solo performance on the Garden Stage Saturday evening
   
• Best "So You Think You Can Dance?" Moment: Angelique Kidjo, plunging into the VIP seats Sunday afternoon and bringing 25 audience members onstage for an enthusiastic dance-along
   
• Best Coffee on the Grounds (har har): Austin Café's free trade, organic brew
   
• Most Alluring Smell Along the Midway (especially very late at night): Freshly-baked cinnamon rolls
   
• Worst Technological Moment: Friday night, when the festival's computer systems slowed down to a crawl, leaving folks waiting (kinda) patiently in long ticket lines
   
• Favorite Inside Joke of the Festival: Can we crack open the Chivas?
   
• Number of Photographs the JazzWest Photo Team (Chuck Gee, Robert Holt, Ronald Davis, Stuart Brinin & Wayne Saroyan) Shot the Entire Festival Weekend: 16,725
   
• Favorite FaceBook Moment: Guitarist Russell Malone greeting MJF's Merrilee Trost after his Sunday night performance in Dizzy’s Den. The two have been FB friends for a while, but this was their first in-person meeting, and Malone instantly recognized Merrilee from her profile picture the moment he stepped off the stage!
   
• Greatest "Tear the Roof Off This Sucka" Moment: Les McCann, the Javon Jackson Band and special guest Dr. Lonnie Smith on the anthemic soul-jazz classic, "Compared To What?" in the Night Club's final Sunday night set
   
• Best-Kept Secret of the 2010 Monterey Jazz Festival: Hey, we'’re not telling. Our lips are sealed…

This summer, baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton brings a special version of his Steve Lacy repertory ensemble, Ideal Bread West, to the Bay Area, performing with several West Coast musicians in a series of concerts showcasing Lacy's compositions.

On August 8, Sinton will perform with Seattle-based musicians Paul Kikuchi on drums and Geoff Harper on bass in an 8 pm concert at The Jazzschool in Berkeley; on August 10, the quintet performs at Bluesix in San Francisco for an 8.30 show. Joining the core trio for this special series of concerts are Bay Area jazz musicians Phillip Greenlief, tenor saxophone, and Jorrit Dijkstra, alto saxophone.

Sinton met Lacy in 2002 while attending the New England Conservatory, and began studying with him until Lacy’s untimely death in June of 2004. That same summer, Sinton moved from Boston to New York City, where he started organizing jam sessions to play Lacy’s compositions. After six months, he found a core group of musicians with which he could continue investigating the implications of Lacy’s work. Another six months later — in December of 2005 — the newly-formed ensemble, calling themselves Ideal Bread, performed its first show at Barbes in Brooklyn, New York.

Since then, Sinton’s group has recorded its eponymous debut, "The Ideal Bread" (available from KMB-Jazz) and garnered much critical praise. The CD was named "Best Debut of 2008" by the Village Voice’s Critics’ Poll, and "Best Tribute" of 2008 by AllAboutJazz New York. Ideal Bread has continued to play regularly throughout New York City for the past three years, appearing at venues such as the Cornelia Street Café, Zebulon, and the Douglass Street Music Collective.

The two Bay Area concerts in August are part of a 10-day tour of Ideal Bread West. The concert at the Jazzschool is billed as "Facets of an American Artist: Steve Lacy the Composer." Lacy was the recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship (also known as the "Genius" grant).

Lacy began his career at the age of 16, playing Dixieland music with older musicians before he became involved with the avant-garde jazz scene, performing on pianist Cecil Taylor's debut album, "Jazz Advance" (1956), and appearing with Taylor's groundbreaking quartet at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival; he also made a notable appearance on an early Gil Evans album.

Lacy's most enduring relationship, however, was with the music of Thelonious Monk, and recorded the first album to feature Monk compositions exclusively ("Reflections," released on the Prestige label in 1958), and briefly played in Monk's band in 1960.

A widely respected figure on the European jazz, Lacy lived in Europe throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s. He returned to the United States in 2002, where he began teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

Over the course of his long career, Lacy's compositional style became one of signature simplicity, often built from a single questioning phrase repeated several times. He also collaborated with an extraordinary range of musicians, from traditional jazz to the avant-garde to contemporary classical music, and based many of his compositions on the works of celebrated authors such as Robert Creeley, Samuel Beckett, Tom Raworth, Herman Melville, Brion Gysin and other Beat-era writers. He also composed musical settings for the Tao Te Ching and haiku poetry.

For tickets or more information, visit the websites for The Jazzschool and Bluesix.

JazzTimes magazine, which temporarily suspended publication in June, is back in business again under new ownership by Madavoy Media, a publishing and trade-show group based in Boston.

Madavoy acquired the jazz magazine on July 10, and announced that it will resume publishing the magazine and its companion website, www.jazztimes.com, immediately.

"We are honored to have the opportunity to expand our portfolio with this remarkable and respected publication," says Jeffrey C. Wolk, chairman and CEO of Madavor Media in a July 14 press release announcing the sale. "Because of our experience and industry partnerships, we are well-positioned to serve jazz enthusiasts and to build on the impressive business started by [publisher] Ira Sabin."

JazzTimes was founded by Sabin in 1970 as a newsletter-type publication called Radio Free Jazz. In 1980, the magazine's name was changed to JazzTimes, and in recent years claimed a circulation of 100,000, higher than leading competitor DownBeat.

"As an established, quality-directed, enthusiast consumer media company, we feel that Madavor Media is the perfect choice as the new steward of the JazzTimes brand," says JazzTimes publisher and CEO Glenn Sabin. "Madavor Media is a successful, growing publisher with the resources and efficiencies that will enable our 39-year-old franchise to provide expanded services to our dedicated readers and advertising clients alike."

"In each issue of JazzTimes, we will continue to deliver the news and information that readers and advertisers expect from the world's leading jazz publication," says Madavor Media's VP/Group Publisher Susan Fitzgerald. "With our experience in circulation, distribution, production, and promotion, Madavor plans to take the JazzTimes brand to new heights."

Current Editor-in-Chief Lee Mergner and Managing Editor Evan Haga will remain with the publication to maintain continuity and connection within the jazz community.

"For Evan and I, this is a great opportunity to reinvent the magazine in the face of so many interesting challenges," says Mergner.

The next issue will feature a cover story on saxophonist Joe Lovano, as well as a piece by investigative reporter Marc Hopkins on the effect of the current economic climate on jazz festivals. The first issue bearing the real imprint of Madavor will be the September issue, which spotlights jazz guitar including stories on John Scofield, Nels Cline and George Benson.

Let's hope they also pay their writers and photographers, who've been without paydays for several months.