INFORMATION FOR
--Leading vibraphonist Steve Nelson and young alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins among the performers
The Jazz Room, William Paterson University’s long-running performance series featuring a wide variety of today’s most exciting jazz musicians, returns for the fall 2022 season with concerts from October 2 through November 20, 2022 in the Shea Center for Performing Arts on campus in Wayne, NJ.
This year’s fall 2022 Jazz Room series line-up includes trumpeter Sean Jones on Sunday, October 2; Brazilian pianist Helio Alves on Sunday, October 9; vibraphonist Steve Nelson with the William Paterson Jazz Orchestra on Sunday, October 23; guitarist James Chirillo on Sunday, November 13, and alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins on Sunday, November 20.
Concerts will begin each Sunday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. Tickets are $15 for the general public, $12 for WP faculty, staff, alumni, and senior citizens, $8 for non-WP students, and free for WP students. Tickets are an additional $5 if purchased on show day. Each concert will be preceded by “Sittin’ In,” the Jazz Room’s accompanying “meet the artist” concert preview featuring interviews with jazz artists and guest speakers. This informal discussion, free to all Jazz Room ticketholders, begins at 3:00 p.m., one hour prior to each concert, in the Shea Recital Hall. For tickets, visit wppresents.org, or contact the box office at 973.720.2371 or boxoffice@wpunj.edu.
The fall series opens on Sunday, October 2, with the leading young trumpeter Sean Jones. Jones, with eight recordings on the Mack Avenue record label, and memberships with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Gerald Wilson Orchestra, and the SF Jazz Collective, has recorded with Nancy Wilson, Steve Turre, and saxophonists Ron Blake and Tia Fuller. The current president of the Jazz Education Network, Jones was just named to an endowed faculty chair in the Johns Hopkins University Peabody Conservatory Jazz Program.
On Sunday, October 9, Brazilian pianist Helio Alves brings his exciting ensemble, featuring guitarist Chico Pinheiro and drummer Alex Kautz, to the Jazz Room stage for a concert that combines the flow and complexity of Brazilian traditions with the high energy of modern jazz. A member of the band Circlechant led by Santi Debriano, he has appeared on recordings with Slide Hampton, Sadao Watanabe, Paquito D’Rivera, Louis Hayes, and Dave Pietro. Alves was the pianist on Yo-Yo Ma’s Grammy-winning album Obrigado Brazil and recorded two albums with the legendary saxophonist Joe Henderson. He has been a fixture on the New York Brazilian jazz scene since the early 1990s.
Steve Nelson, one of the world’s leading jazz vibraphonists, joins the high-energy William Paterson Jazz Orchestra, led by David Demsey, WP professor of music and coordinator of jazz studies, on Sunday, October 23. Nelson, part of the lineage on his instrument from Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, and Bobby Hutcherson, is known for his solo work, as well as his collaboration with bassist Dave Holland, and he has toured and recorded with such jazz luminaries as Kenny Barron, Johnny Griffin, Jackie McLean, David “Fathead” Newman, and Bobby Watson. Nelson was a close collaborator with WP’s former jazz director, the late Mulgrew Miller, and was a member of Miller’s sextet, Wingspan. This concert will feature premieres of arrangements of Nelson’s compositions by William Paterson graduate student arrangers.
The series turns to swing and bop on Sunday, November 13, with virtuoso guitarist James Chirillo. A charter member of the Smithsonian Masterworks Orchestra directed by Gunther Schuller and David Baker, he was a student of the legendary Tiny Grimes, a member of Benny Goodman’s last touring band, and performed frequently with Bob Wilbur, Buck Clayton, Kenny Davern, Vic Damone, Marilyn Maye and, more recently, with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. He brings his swinging virtuosity to the Jazz Room for the first time, joined by Jon-Erik Kelso, trumpet; Evan Christopher, clarinet; Harvey Tibbs, trombone; and Jerome Jennings, drums.
Young alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, who has quickly established himself as one of the most talked-about, impactful players on today’s jazz scene, brings the fall 2022 Jazz Room season to a close on Sunday, November 20. His debut album, Omega, was named Best Jazz Album of 2021 by The New York Times, which was followed by The 7th Hand, also featuring his quartet of pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Daryl Johns, and drummer Kweku Sumby. The group’s dynamic is carried both by Wilkins’s playing, which emerges from the saxophone traditions, and his considerable voice as a composer, paying homage to the Black church, baptism, and coded slave chants.
William Paterson University has been a flagship of jazz education for nearly 50 years and is recognized internationally for its Jazz Studies Program and nationally acclaimed Jazz Room series of concerts each fall and spring.
The Jazz Room at William Paterson University has been made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. The Jazz Room series also receives funding aid from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
