Duke’s in Bed was an album released on the Verve label in 1957. It featured alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges with members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra (sans the leader). The title track was written by Ellington and arranged on the album by Billy Strayhorn.
On Sunday, June 8, at the New Jersey Jazz Society’s Jersey Jazz LIVE! concert in Madison, trumpeter Danny Jonokuchi chose it as his quartet’s closing tune and invited two members of the Rising Stars opening act — trombonist Alex Marichal of Mount Olive and drummer Alex Kavlakian of Rahway to join in. The result was an exhilarating performance.
It wasn’t so long ago that Jonokuchi and his bassist, Liany Mateo, were Rising Stars themselves — Jonokuchi in the March 2021 issue of Jersey Jazz Magazine and Mateo in October 2023. Marichal, a junior at Mount Olive High School, was a member of the 2024 New Jersey All-State Jazz Ensemble and the Jazz House Kids Big Band that recently played at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition; Kavlakian, a Jazz Studies major at Montclair State’s John J. Cali School of Music, was the recipient last fall of the TD James Moody Scholarship, presented by Moody’s widow, Linda, and JHK.
The opening act trio, which also included bassist Sam Konin of Lawrenceville (a multi-award winner at February’s Charles Mingus Festival), got the proceedings off to an energetic start with selections ranging from Harry Warren’s “September in the Rain” (so closely identified with the late trumpeter Roy Hargrove) to Sonny Rollins’ “Oleo”.
Jonokuchi’s quartet also included the electrifying pianist Hyuna Park and drummer Kevin Congleton. Highlights included Hoagy Carmichael’s “Skylark” and Jonokuchi’s composition, “South Philly”. (Photo above, from left: Jonokuchi, Mateo, Marichal, Kavlakian; photo below is Hyuna Park).
PHOTOS BY SANFORD JOSEPHSON
