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A WP audience favorite, singer Catherine Russell has had a career that has spanned numerous decades and musical styles. Early on, she sang background vocals for Steely Dan, Donald Fagen, David Bowie, Madonna, and many more. When she embarked on a solo career, she reached for standards like “Harlem on My Mind” and appeared in a biopic about early jazz leader Buddy Bolden. She has received three Grammy Award nominations and continues to collaborate with performers like Sean Mason and John Pizzarelli, with whom she performed here on the Jazz Room. Her amazingly flexible voice will bring a great message of warmth and blues to the Jazz Room stage again.
Tickets:Public: $25Senior/WP Community: $22Non-WP Student: $15
Free for WP Students with show of ID
All prices include fees.
Sponsored by Keith Danish
Ted Rosenthal has collaborated, toured, and worked with some of the jazz greats of the past 40 years, including Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, Jon Faddis, Phil Woods, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and Bob Brookmeyer. Early in his career, he was winner of the 1988 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, and his appearance on Marian McPartland’s NPR Piano Jazz program is well known. His CDs show his approaches to the American popular song and Broadway classics. Today’s concert will showcase his trio’s versions of the compositions of one of the greatest American composers of any genre, George Gershwin, including Rosenthal’s unique version of Gershwin’s iconic “Rhapsody in Blue.”
Tickets:$25 – Public$22 - Senior/WP Community$15 – Non-WP StudentFree for WP Students with show of ID
Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Music and a Macarthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, Tyshawn Sorey is a jazz alumnus of William Paterson University, and of the famed Newark Arts High School. Althoughhemaybebetter known worldwide for his compositions, he is a virtuosic and imaginative, powerful drummer who is a steady fixture on today’s jazz scene, collaborating with Aaron Diehl, Greg Osby, Marilyn Crispell, Roscoe Mitchell, Vijay Iyer, and many more. He is on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, formerly taught at Wesleyan University, and his doctorate in composition is from Columbia University. We are proud to bring Tyshawn Sorey back to the Jazz Room stage.
Tickets:$25 – Public$22 - Senior/WP Community$15 – Non-WP Student
Sponsored by Thomas Larson
This concert brings to the stage one of the main solo voices of the legendary Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, trumpeter Scott Wendholt. He has been the lead soloist on many of the Vanguard Orchestra’s most famous pieces, including “Mean What You Say,” and a newer composition written for him by the great Bob Brookmeyer. Wendholt has also performed or recorded with Bobby McFerrin, Chris Botti, Toshiko Akiyoshi, the Mingus Big Band, Christian McBride, Cyrus Chestnut, and led the house band at the famous Augie’s Jazz Club in New York in the early 1990s. He has been featured on more than 120 CDs. His virtuosity will be paired with the William Paterson Jazz Orchestra, led for the first time by Dr. Mitch Butler, WP’s new coordinator of jazz studies.
Tickets: Public: $25Senior/WP Community: $22Non-WP Student: $15
The great pianist, singer, and arranger Eliane Elias came to New York from her native Sao Paolo, Brazil to attend Juilliard, but a year later joined the powerful acoustic fusion band Steps Ahead with Michael Brecker, Mike Mainieri, and others. Aside from her long relationship with Steps, she has collaborated with Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. Her main influences are Antonio Carlos Jobim and Bill Evans; she has dedicated albums to both, including one recording that featured unrecorded Evans compositions. Her deep dedication to the tradition of the bossa nova continues to showcase her as a vocalist as well as at the piano. A multiple Grammy Award winner, she continues to create albums at the highest level, including her newest release Time and Again. We welcome her return to the Jazz Room for the finale of our fall season.
Tickets:Gold Circle: $50Rear Orchestra: $45Front Loge: $40Rear Loge: $35
Branford Marsalis continues to thrill audiences around the world while racking up achievements across diverse musical platforms, even after four decades in the international spotlight. From his initial recognition as a young jazz lion, landing his first major jobs with trumpet legend Clark Terry and alongside his brother Wynton in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, he has expanded his vision as an instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and educator, crossing stylistic boundaries while maintaining an unwavering creative integrity. Branford went on to form his own quartet and it remains his primary performance vehicle. Known for the telepathic communication among its uncommonly consistent personnel, its deep book of original music replete with expressive melodies and provocative forms, and an unrivaled spirit in both live and recorded performances. The Branford Marsalis Quartet has long been recognized as the standard to which other ensembles of its kind must be measured.
Along Branford’s musical journey, he has become an avatar of contemporary artistic excellence winning three Grammy Awards, a Tony nomination for his work as a composer on Broadway, a citation by the National Endowment for the Arts as Jazz Master, and a 2021 Primetime EMMY nomination for the score he composed for the Tulsa Burning documentary.
As for other public stages, Branford spent a period touring with Sting, collaborated with the Grateful Dead and Bruce Hornsby, served as Musical Director of The Tonight Show Starring Jay Leno and hosted National Public Radio’s widely syndicated Jazz Set. The range and quality of these diverse activities established Branford as a familiar presence beyond the worlds of jazz, classical, and beyond.
Tickets: Gold Circle $75Rear Orchestra $67Front Loge $57Rear Loge/Accessible $47
Discounts:10% off for senior citizens and William Paterson employees and students. 15% off for groups of ten or more.
