Christian McBride leads Monterey Festival's touring show at the Merriam

How to represent that impressive legacy in a touring show? The festival made all the right choices in assembling a stellar ensemble of all-stars to celebrate its 55th anniversary, entrusting its direction to Philly's own Christian McBride.

The bandleader began Saturday's concert at the Merriam Theater by striding onto the stage with jazz grande dame Dee Dee Bridgewater on his arm. The singer's relationship with Monterey dates back at least 40 years.

But the band member sharing the longest history with the festival may not have been a musician but an instrument: McBride's bass once belonged to the renowned Ray Brown, who received an homage from the duo in the form of a flirtatious "I'm Beginning to See the Light."

Bridgewater stoked the raucous crowd with her typically saucy banter, but even when she stepped away, the band's virtuosity continued to draw boisterous reactions. The lively, profoundly swinging rhythm section was the key to the group's buoyant sound, with McBride's stunning, fleet-fingered bass matched by Lewis Nash's delectably on-target drumming and the Oscar Peterson-inspired flurries of pianist Benny Green.

Though the rhythm section was all steeped in the bop tradition, tenor saxophonist Chris Potter and young trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire practice a more modern style. Their addition to the band proved intriguing: Potter stretched and twisted fluid lines like pulling taffy through his horn. Akinmusire played a more airy, pensive style. The combination, which turned celebratory on a combustible finale of Horace Silver's "Filthy McNasty," aptly summarized the Monterey Festival's advocacy of the wide-ranging jazz spectrum.