The Next Generation Jazz Festival is like the March Madness of jazz.

They’re coming in all at once: 1,300 high schoolers, middle schoolers and collegiates, the best jazz students from across the country, descending on Monterey for the 46th year of the Monterey Jazz Festival’s younger sibling, the Next Generation Jazz Festival.

They come from the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts Jazz Band, SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Orchestra, the University of Miami Frost School of Music. They number 63 groups from 11 states, mostly from California.

“These ensembles were selected through a competitive application process and achieved a ‘superior’ rating at prior festivals, so they are all astounding,” says MJF Education Director Paul Contos.

They come ready to smash their moment in the spotlight. They are competing to play this year’s Monterey Jazz Festival and for Berklee School of Music scholarships, and auditioning for the Next Generation Jazz Festival Band (alumni include Joshua Redman and Benny Green). So these kids tend to unleash their musical virtuosity.

In the past, the Monterey Conference Center contained all that roiling music, more individual performances than the Monterey Jazz Festival, says MJF Marketing Associate Timothy Orr. But that space is being renovated.

Portola Hotel & Spa is this year’s headquarters, housing the jazz expo and vocal, combo and middle school big band competitions. Vocal spotlight performances happen across the street in the skyview jazz club of the Marriott Hotel; two blocks away, Turn 12 Bar & Grill gets boatloads of combos; and the Museum of Monterey sees big band spotlight action.

But the main room – the one standing in for the deconstructed Conference Center’s 1,800-capacity Serra Ballroom – is the giant 900-seater tent sitting on Custom House Plaza, called The Pavilion.

“Fellow artists who performed at Jazz Bash By the Bay [say] acoustics in the Pavilion was fantastic,” Contos says.

Music starts with a Friday concert by the heralded Josh Shpak Quartet, opening for drummer, Grammy winner and MJF artist-in-residence Terri Lyne Carrington and a dynamite ensemble of NGJF judges. It’s the only show that requires a ticket, and the only show that’s already full.

But the public can still see Carrington, Shpak, Joel Frahm and six-time Grammy winning composer Vince Mendoza – for free – when they teach clinics and workshops. Contos extracts some other highlights for listeners: Stan Kenton’s version of West Side Story, cutting-edge repertoire, timeless jewels from Duke Ellington and Count Basie, a commission by the revered George Stone, the Saturday evening concert of the three top scoring high school big bands.

The soundtrack in downtown Monterey this weekend is set to swing.

NEXT GENERATION JAZZ FESTIVAL 7-10:30pm Fri (sold out); 8am-11:30pm Sat; 9am-5:15pm Sun. Various locations throughout Monterey. Free. 233-3715, www.MontereyJazzFestival.org