During the pandemic, the New Jersey Jazz Society held virtual concerts that appeared on njjs.com and the NJJS Facebook and YouTube sites. In March 2021, the performers were two second year Jazz Studies students at Juilliard: trumpeter Summer Camargo from Hollywood, FL, and pianist Tyler Henderson from Houston.
Four months later, Camargo received a phone call that changed her life and career. It was from Lenny Pickett, Musical Director of the Saturday Night Live band. Recalled Camargo, “He gave me a call, out of the blue, and asked me if I’d like to be in the band. I’m so grateful to the New Jersey Jazz Society because actually the video where Lenny Pickett saw me perform was the NJJS concert. It’s incredible how a five-minute phone call can change your life. I’m still in the band, and this is a special season because it’s the 50th anniversary of SNL.”
A movie, Saturday Night, celebrating the 50th anniversary, had its world premiere at the 51st Telluride Film Festival on August 31 and had a limited theatrical release in the United States on September 27 before its wide release by Sony Pictures on October 11. “I’m in the movie,” Camargo said. “I was called by Jon Batiste in April to be on the film score; and, later in the summer, I was called through SNL because they wanted the SNL band to record. So, I got recorded twice for the movie.”
At 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, December 8, Camargo (photo above) will lead a trio at NJJS’ Jersey Jazz LIVE! concert at the Madison (NJ) Community Arts Center. “We’re going to be playing some standards, some new originals, and we’re also going to be playing some songs that are on my album,” Camargo said. The album, To Whom I Love, was released earlier this year on Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Blue Engine Records label. It contains seven Camargo original compositions and two standards: Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields’ “On the Sunny Side of the Street” and Neal Hefti’s “Splanky”.
Reviewing the album for AllAboutJazz, Nicholas F. Mondello wrote that Camargo “has a luscious trumpet and flugelhorn tone, highly expressive command of her axes, and uses her vast technical chops to deliver the entire spectrum of volume, inflection, and nuance. Her improv style is such that melodic and rhythmic surprises lurk behind and leap from every corner.”
The album started, Camargo said, “because I was part of a class at Juilliard called ‘Leadership in the Arts’. There are a lot of amazing grant opportunities at Juilliard, so my assignment was to put together an application for some of the grants. I took it really seriously and said, ‘OK, I have enough original compositions for an album.’ I had a concept and thought of the personnel. But I didn’t submit through a Juilliard grant; I ended up submitting to the Laurie Frink grant. (Named after the late trumpeter and educator Laurie Frink, the grant offers young brass players an opportunity for serious study or to undertake a creative project).
“I ended up winning,” Camargo continued, “which was really unexpected. So, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I have to put together this album.’ So, I called a bunch of people. I called Sean Jones, Bria Skonberg, and Wynton Marsalis; and they all really helped me a lot. When I talked to Wynton, he told me about Blue Engine, and that’s how I got connected with the label. Sean became my producer, and when I said I wanted an organ player, he recommended Joey DeFrancesco. We recorded the whole album in August 2022, and I had just found out about Saturday Night Live the month before that.”
Camargo’s relationship with Marsalis goes back to 2018 when she became the first female trumpet player to be named Best Soloist at JALC’s Essentially Ellington festival. And her composition, “Leapfroggin'”, won the Songwriting award for Best Original Composition and Arrangement. When she performed it, Marsalis introduced her, saying “She is spectacular in her playing and her presence. What can I say about her? It just gives me so much hope and feeling.”
Jones is Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall’s NYO (National Youth Orchestra) Jazz Orchestra, and Camargo was selected for that ensemble twice — in 2018 and 2019. NYO accepts 22 student musicians from across the country. During Camargo’s senior year at Fort Lauderdale’s Dillard High School, Jones was the guest artist. He was also at the Vail Jazz Festival when she did the Vail Jazz Workshop.
The theme of her album, Camargo said, is “dedicating songs to the people I most treasure in my life — family, my mentors, and my friends and also just giving back to the community that has helped me so much. ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’ is dedicated to my first band director, Jim Mullen (at Calvary Christian Academy in Hollywood). That was his favorite song ever. ‘Splanky’ is dedicated to my high school band director, Christopher Dorsey, because we played a lot of that in class.”
Band members on To Whom I Love, in addition to the late DeFrancesco, are: Veronica Leahy, reeds; Jeffrey Miller, trombone; Esteban Castro, piano; Raul Reyes Bueno, bass; Varun Das, drums; and Jamey Haddad, percussion. Leahy is the Rising Star in the November 2024 issue of Jersey Jazz Esteban was the JJ Rising Star in April.
The Juilliard experience, Camargo said, “was amazing. It helped me grow as an artist, as a bandleader, and as a composer.” She reeled off a long list of teachers who were important in her musical development, but one special mentor was the late trumpeter Chris Jaudes, who passed away in February. “He was my teacher for my first year at Juilliard,” she said. “He told me that he recommended me for the New Jersey Jazz Society online concert.” Jaudes, who lived in Maplewood, NJ, next door to NJJS Board member Jay Doherty, suggested Camargo and Tyler Henderson to him for the series.
The other two members of Camargo’s trio at the December 8th Jersey Jazz LIVE! concert will be pianist William Schwartzman and bassist Ben Feldman. Schwartzman, a Jazz Performance major at Juilliard, has performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival. In 2023, as a member of the Carnegie Hall NYO Jazz Orchestra, he toured Europe with Sean Jones and NEA Jazz Master vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater. Feldman has a Bachelor in Music in Double Bass Performance from the Manhattan School of Music. He studied with bassists Ron Carter and Buster Williams and has performed with vibraphonist Stefon Harris, pianist Gerald Clayton, and drummer Matt Wilson, among others.
The Summer Camargo Trio will be preceded by a Rising Star opening act featuring the Evan Gongora Trio. Gongora (photo below), a baritone saxophonist from East Hanover, NJ, and freshman Jazz Studies major at William Paterson University, was the Jersey Jazz Rising Star in May. David Demsey, Coordinator of Jazz Studies at WPU, recalled that, “When our faculty first heard Evan, we knew that he had something very special and has limitless potential for his future.” Gongora’s trio will include two other William Paterson students, bassist Eli Leder from Avon, Ohio, and drummer Luke Richards from Sacramento, CA.
This month, Camargo’s quintet will be performing at the Yale Undergraduate Jazz Collective on November 17 and at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Brookville (L.I.). NY on November 21. The other members of her quintet are Bueno, Das, guitarist David Rourke, and alto saxophonist Jerian Jamanila.-SANFORD JOSEPHSON
The Madison Community Arts Center is located at 10 Kings Road in Madison, NJ. The Jersey Jazz LIVE! concerts begin at 3 p.m. Admission is $10 for NJJS members and $15 for non-members. Student admission is $5 with valid ID. There will be light refreshments for purchase. To order tickets in advance, https://artsintrinsic.ticketleap.com/jersey-jazz-live-december/
: Funding for Jersey Jazz Live! has been made possible, in part, by funds from Morris Arts through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of The National Endowment for the Arts. This program is also proudly supported by a grant from The Summit Foundation