In May 2010, the legendary composer/arranger Johnny Mandel performed for three nights with the DIVA Jazz Orchestra at Dizzy’s Club in New York. Jersey Jazz Magazine’s Joe Lang wrote that the match between Mandel and DIVA “was one made in heaven.”
On Saturday night, September 27, during the Metuchen segment of this year’s Middlesex County Jazz Festival, DIVA celebrated those concerts and the subsequent live album by performing Mandel’s theme from the movie, I Want to Live, with a magnificent solo by baritone saxophonist Leigh Pilzer of the piece played by Gerry Mulligan in the film. (Pilzer’s thesis for her Doctorate of Music was an analysis of Mulligan’s small group solos).
Every tune at the concert could be considered a highlight, but other special moments included a duet by alto saxophonists Veronica Leahy and Stephanie Tateiwa of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Happy Talk”, featured on the classic 1962 Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley Capitol album; and trombonist/vocalist Hailey Brinnel’s stirring performance of the Sparks Brothers’ “Every Day I Have the Blues”, one of the tunes from Tappin’ Thru Life, DIVA’s tribute to the late dancer/singer Maurice Hines.
DIVA released an album, A Celebration of Maurice Hines: Tappin’ Thru Life, earlier this year with guest artists — vocalists Clint Holmes and Ann Hampton Callaway and tap dancer/vocalists John Manzari and Leo Manzari — recreating the music from the Hines stage show. Jersey Jazz‘s Lang wrote that, “The album captures the musical magic that made the show such a success. Throughout the 18 tracks, the band is at its roaring best, and the vocalists each do a superb job of singing the program of standards, with the Manzaris adding some fine tap interludes.”
In November 2019 when Tappin’ Thru Life was performed at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Hines told the audience, “one of the great thrills of my life” was when he and his brother, Gregory, worked with the Count Basie Orchestra. Then, he sang “Every Day I Have the Blues”, a big hit for Basie vocalist Joe Williams.
Co-founded more than 30 years ago by Maricle and former Buddy Rich manager Stanley Kay, DIVA is a mixture of seasoned veterans such as Pilzer (interviewed in the September 2025 issue of Jersey Jazz), pianist Tomoko Ohno, trumpeter Liesl Whitaker, trombonist Jen Krupa, and trumpeter Jami Dauber along with young stars on the rise like Leahy, Tateiwa, Brinnel, trumpeters Kellin Hanas and Grace Fox, and tenor saxophonist Jade Elliott.
Hanas and Leahy have been featured as Jersey Jazz Rising Stars (January and November, 2024, respectively), and Fox was an NJJS Scholarship winner in 2023.-SANFORD JOSEPHSON