The New Jersey Jazz Society’s 2022-23 Jersey Jazz LIVE! season closed with a flourish on Sunday, June 11, as jazz fans packed the Madison, NJ, Community Arts Center to hear the Ted Rosenthal Trio, featuring Noriko Ueda on bass and Zach Adleman on drums (photo above).
Rosenthal opened with two familiar standards – Richard Rodgers’ “People Will Say We’re in Love” and Hoagy Carmichael’s “Skylark”. He also demonstrated his ability to blend classical music and jazz, performing two pieces from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 “bebop style”. He included music from his opera, Dear Erich and finished the afternoon with a stirring medley from a 2006 Venus Records album featuring music from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I. The medley included “Shall We Dance”, “I Have Dreamed”, and “Getting to Know You.” When the album, with George Mraz on bass and Lewis Nash on drums, was released, AllAboutJazz’s Dr. Judith Schlesinger wrote, “The Ted Rosenthal Trio gives new life to that ageless material.”
The afternoon’s festivities opened with a Rising Stars quintet from the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, led by drummer Matt Vera-Corcoran of Whippany (photo below). The other band members were pianist Lorna Morales from Elizabeth, bassist Felipe Orozco from Perez Zeledon, Costa Rica, tenor saxophonist Ryan Huston from Toms River, and trumpeter Will Schetelich from Scotch Plains. They warmed up the audience with a spirited presentation of some jazz classics including Charlie Parker’s “Chasin’ the Bird”, Bronislaw Kaper’s “On Green Dolphin Street”, and Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train.” There was also a nod to the 1937 animated movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with a performance of the Frank Churchill/Larry Morey tune, “Someday My Prince Will Come”, made famous in jazz circles by Miles Davis.
The next Jersey Jazz LIVE! will feature the Bill Mays Trio on October 8. Funding for JJL 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.
PHOTOS BY MITCHELL SEIDEL