The Latin Jazz Collective combines Latin beats and a big band sound for music you’ll want to dance to.

This year’s Monterey Jazz Festival lineup has a little bit of everything – from community staples to newcomers, classic icons to beloved iconoclasts. With such an eclectic lineup, it is only fitting that the opening act at the Garden Stage this year is the Latin Jazz Collective – a fusion of Latin-inspired rhythm-and-blues that sounds like a big band you’d hear on a record in Jake Blues’ jail cell.

Not to be mistaken for salsa music or mariachi – although such rhythms are very much present – this seven-piece ensemble blends Latin beats with quintessential outside-the-box jazz melodies.

“It’s not a common music for Latinos,” Chicano trombonist for the ensemble, Felix Diaz-Contreras, says of jazz. “I like how there is structure [when playing jazz music], but it’s your idea on how to improvise that structure.”

Diaz-Contreras, born and raised in Pacific Grove, spends his days teaching jazz to eighth-grade students at Salinas Elementary. He feels it is important to share this type of music with the local Latino community, recalling how someone perceived him once at the Monterey Jazz Festival when he was younger.

“I had a red shirt on and I had a lady come up to me and say, ‘You look mafioso. Are you here with the mariachi salsa band?’ And she was quite shocked to hear I was with the jazz band.”

While Diaz-Contreras doesn’t believe that race had anything to do with it, in that moment he realized there was a stereotype that needed to be broken.

The Latin Jazz Collective is made up of several unique artists, each bringing together the big band sound with the Latin-inspired beat. Percussionist and band leader John Nava (a founding member of the Chicano All Stars band), is joined by other leads like saxophonist Stu Reynolds and drummer Martin Binder.

At 23 years old, Diaz-Contreras is the one of the youngest members of the Collective. He attributes his success in music to his music teachers, as well as his mother and sisters who supported him in his musical journey. “My mother, Jessica Contreras, and my sister, Victoria Diaz-Contreras, were always there for me from the start,” he says.

THE LATIN JAZZ COLLECTIVE performs at 4:30pm Friday, Sept. 22 on the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Garden Stage.