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June 5, 2008
WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY PRESENTS 15TH ANNUAL SUMMER JAZZ WEEK
—Notable jazz artists, including the legendary Billy Taylor Trio, in concert from July 21 to 25
The legendary Billy Taylor Trio will perform on July 25 during William Paterson University’s fifteenth annual Summer Jazz Week from July 21 to 26 in Shea Center for Performing Arts on the campus in Wayne. Also featured during the weeklong concert series are Cecil Bridgewater and Friends; the American Jazz Repertory Orchestra, conducted by Clem DeRosa; Freddy Cole and the William Paterson Summer Jazz Ensemble, directed by Stephen Marcone; and the Sean Smith Trio.
The concerts are held in conjunction with the University’s Summer Jazz Improvisation Workshop for high school and college students. All students will participate in hands-on, small group sessions with guest artists as well as morning classes, afternoon performance sessions and clinics. On Saturday, July 26, the workshop will conclude with a 1 p.m. concert featuring the workshop’s student ensembles.
Summer Jazz Week features concerts every evening at 7:30 p.m. from Monday, July 21 through Friday, July 25 in Shea Center for the Performing Arts on campus. A $15 pass for the entire week will be on sale through Monday evening’s concert or single tickets may be purchased for $4.
Billy Taylor, a frequent participant and collaborator in the University’s summer jazz program, is a jazz pianist, composer, and educator whose career spans more than six decades. In addition to being an influential musician, Taylor is a highly regarded educator who holds a doctorate in music education from the University of Massachusetts. He is known for his work on “CBS Sunday Morning” and National Public Radio, including hosting “Billy Taylor’s Jazz from the Kennedy Center.” Taylor received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from William Paterson University in May, 2008.
Summer Jazz Week, which draws thousands of jazz fans to the University’s campus every summer, is designed to make jazz more accessible to the community. William Paterson has been a flagship of jazz education for more than 25 years and is recognized for its internationally known Jazz Studies Program and nationally acclaimed Jazz Room Series of concerts each fall and spring.
The festival opens on Monday, July 21 with a University faculty concert featuring Cecil Bridgewater and Friends. Bridgewater is a trumpeter whose long list of credits includes playing, composing, and recording with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and the Horace Silver Quartet. Over the years he has shared the stage and/or studio with the Count Basie Orchestra, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Heath, Sir Roland Hanna, Wynton Marsalis, and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers among others. Bridgewater is a jazz instructor at William Paterson.
On Tuesday, July 25, Clem DeRosa, a renowned drummer, conductor, and jazz educator, will lead the American Jazz Repertory Orchestra in a concert. Over the years, DeRosa has toured Europe and the U.S., leading the Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Dorsey Brothers, Bert Kaempfert, and Tribute to Benny Goodman Orchestras, as well as his own Copacabana Orchestra in New York City. DeRosa is the father of Richard DeRosa, associate professor of jazz arranging, at William Paterson.
Freddy Cole and the William Paterson Summer Jazz Ensemble, directed by Stephen Marcone, will perform on Wednesday, July 23. Cole, a pianist and vocalist (and the brother of Nat “King” Cole), regularly tours the U.S., Europe, the Far East, and South America.
Bassist and composer Sean Smith and his trio will perform on Thursday, July 24. Smith has been part of the international jazz scene for more than twenty years, appearing in many of the major jazz rooms and concert halls all over the world. He has toured extensively in North and South America, throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as Russia, Turkey, Morocco, and Japan.
The Billy Taylor Trio will bring Summer Jazz Week 2008 to a conclusion on Friday, July 25.
William Paterson’s Summer Jazz Week is funded, in part, by a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, and a grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
For more information, click here or contact the Shea Center Box Office at 973-720-2371.
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www.wpunj.edu
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