Three of the five performers in William Paterson’s 2025 Summer Jazz series have been featured in Jersey Jazz in the past year.
Trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, subject of the JJ cover story in July/August 2024, was scheduled to perform on Friday, July 26, 2024, but the concert was canceled due to illness. He’ll be back with the “Wycliffe Gordon and Friends” concert on Friday, July 25, this year.
According to Gordon (photo above), the trombone “has a wider range of voices than any other instrument.” His “go-to” influence is J.J. Johnson, whose solos, Gordon said, “are so well thought out. You can learn the notes, but to learn the inflections, you have to have a certain mastery of the trombone.”
Some of his other favorite trombonists of the past are Jack Teagarden, Lawrence Brown, and Trummy Young. Teagarden, he said, was “kind of like Pops (Louis Armstrong) was to the trumpet. The way he sang, the way he played. I love his mastery of the trombone and his flexibility.
“Lawrence Brown,” he continued, “was known for his ability to play lead trombone and for the sweet tone that he played with. Trummy could play sweetly but he could also play raucously. There’s so much that each of them brought to the instrument. I learned something from all of them.”
Drummer Dan Pugach, scheduled for Monday, July 21, at WP, won a Grammy last year for Best Large Jazz Ensemble for his Outside in Music album, Bianca Reimagined: Music for Paws and Persistence. Pugach, who grew up in Israel, told Jersey Jazz‘s Jay Sweet (March 2024 that he started listening to big band music when he was young. “One of my earliest exposures,” he said, “was to the Mel Lewis and Thad Jones Vanguard Orchestra. To me, they were like gods — the gold standard, the ultimate.” From there, he started exploring others such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Bob Brookmeyer.
Vocalist April May Webb, performing on Wednesday, July 23, won last year’s Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition. Webb (photo below) attended William Paterson 10 years ago. She told JJ‘s Sanford Josephson (January 2025) that the late pianist Mulgrew Miller, then WP Director of Jazz Studies, had “a great influence on me. He’s the reason why, as a vocalist, I focused on Sarah Vaughan.”
At the Sarah Vaughan finals, Webb’s three song selections were: Her original composition, “Cottonwood Tree”; John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”, and “Round Midnight” by Thelonious Monk. “Cottonwood Tree” is about Webb’s transition from Kansas to New Jersey, referring to a tree that was in her backyard at home. “I started the show with ‘Giant Steps”, she said, “because I wanted to use a piece you don’t hear vocalists do a lot and that is notoriously difficult to improvise over.” As for “Round Midnight”, “I thought, ‘What’s the hardest song I could do?'”
The other two Summer Jazz performances will be pianist Manuel Valara and his new Cuban Express (July 22) and a quartet led by saxophonist Dayna Stephens (July 24). All concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. in William Paterson’s Shea Center at 300 Pompton Road in Wayne, NJ. For more information or to order tickets, log onto sheacenter.vbotickets.com or call (973) 720-2321.
APRIL MAY WEBB PHOTO BY SHAKIRU BOLA OKOY
