Monterey Jazz Festival Clara Ward Singers, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Modern Jazz Quartet, Ornette Coleman Quartet, Carmen McRae, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Richie Havens, and Big Brother and the Holding Company w/ Janis Joplin 1968 Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Count Basie Orchestra, Oscar Peterson Trio, Modern Jazz Quartet, Cal Tjader Quintet, Mel Tormé, B. B. King, Muddy Waters, Billy Eckstine, Big Mama Thornton, and George Duke Trio w/ Third Wave 1969 Miles Davis Quintet w/ Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland & Jack DeJohnette, Thelonious Monk Quartet, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Cannonball Adderley Quintet, Roberta Flack & Her Trio, Sly and the Family Stone, and Buddy
John LaPorta with the Woody Herman Orchestra. Beginning in 1947 he studied with Lennie Tristano. With Teo Macero and Charles Mingus he was a member of the Jazz Composers Workshop, trying to combine jazz with classical music. In the classical world, he worked with Boston Pops, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, and Igor Stravinsky. In jazz he worked with Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, and Lester Young. He taught at Parkway Music School, then at public schools on Long Island, followed by the Manhattan School of Music and the Berklee College of Music. With guitarist Jack Petersen, he