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When pianist James Austin, Jr., led a quartet at one of the last New Jersey Jazz Society live Jazz Socials

“Shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of one of the great modern pioneers of jazz piano and improvisation.

The producers of the CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival have tentatively planned this year’s festival for July 30-August 7 at

W. Royal Stokes has had an interesting career spending a decade as a Professor of Greek and Latin Language and Literature and Ancient History at five different universities. After taking to the road for a transitional period, he settled down as a jazz journalist and radio host in the Washington, D.C. area.

Pianists Aaron Diehl and Adam Birnbaum are both winners of the Cole Porter Fellowship of the American Pianists Awards. In

Guitarist Vic Juris died early on the morning of December 31 at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, NJ. A

When you visit the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, you’re met with all sorts of jazz ephemera: Lester Young’s saxophone, a green Miles Davis trumpet, a miniature statue of Louis Armstrong, documents from various music luminaries.

(Continued from the January-February issue of Jersey Jazz)

Art Blakey was a mentor and inspiration for many jazz players who played in the Jazz
Messengers and then went on to individual prominence — players such as Lee Morgan,
Wayne Shorter, Benny Golson, Horace Silver, Walter Davis Jr., Cedar Walton, and Hank
Mobley.

This past October, producer, composer, keyboardist, and vocalist Sérgio Mendes and singer/songwriter Bebel Gilberto presented a special “60th Anniversary of Bossa Nova” concert at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown.