SNL Trumpeter to Lead Trio at NJ Jazz Society's Jersey Jazz LIVE! Concert in Madison

 

NJJS' Jersey Jazz LIVE! Concert

WHEN: Sunday, December 8, 3 p.m.  
WHERE: Madison Community Arts Center, 10 Kings Road in Madison, NJ
TICKETS: $10 for NJJS members and $15 for non-members. Student ad­mission is $5 with valid ID. There will be light refreshments for pur­chase. 
To order tickets in advance, https://artsintrinsic.ticketleap.com/jersey-jazz-live-december/

During the pandemic, the New Jersey Jazz Society held virtual concerts that appeared on njjs.com and the NJJS Facebook and YouTube sites. In March 2021, the performers were two second year Jazz Studies students at Juilliard: trumpeter Summer Camargo from Hollywood, FL,  and pianist Tyler Henderson from Houston. 

Four months after the virtual concert, Camargo received a phone call that changed her life and career. It was from Lenny Pickett, Musical Director of the Saturday Night Live band. Recalled Camargo, "He gave me a call, out of the blue, and asked me if I'd like to be in the band. I'm so grateful to the New Jersey Jazz Society because actually the video where Lenny Pickett saw me perform was the NJJS concert. It's incredible how a five-minute phone call can change your life. I'm still in the band, and this is a special season because it's the 50th anniversary of SNL."

"We're going to be playing some standards, some new originals, and we're also going to be playing some songs that are on my album," Camargo said. The album, To Whom I Love, was released earlier this year on Jazz at Lincoln Center's Blue Engine Records label. It contains seven Camargo original compositions and two standards: Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields' "On the Sunny Side of the Street" and Neal Hefti's "Splanky". 

In 2018, Camargo became the first female trumpet player to be named Best Soloist at JALC's Essentially Ellington festival. And her composition, "Leapfroggin'", won the Songwriting award for Best Original Composition and Arrangement. When she performed it, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who is JALC Managing and Artistic Director, introduced her, saying "She is spectacular in her playing and her presence. What can I say about her? It just gives me so much hope and feeling."

The Juilliard experience, Camargo said, "was amazing. It helped me grow as an artist, as a bandleader, and as a composer." She reeled off a long list of teachers who were important in her musical development, but one special mentor was the late trumpeter Chris Jaudes of Maplewood, who passed away in February. "He was my teacher for my first year at Juilliard," she said. "He told me that he recommended me for the New Jersey Jazz Society online concert." Jaudes, who lived next door to NJJS Board member Jay Doherty, suggested Camargo and Tyler Henderson to him for the series.

The other two members of Camargo's trio at the December 8th Jersey Jazz LIVE! concert will be pianist William Schwartzman and bassist Ben Feldman. Schwartzman, a Jazz Performance major at Juilliard, has performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival. Feldman has a Bachelor in Music degree in Double Bass Performance from the Manhattan School of Music. 

The Summer Camargo Trio will be preceded by a Rising Star opening act featuring the Evan Gongora Trio. Gongora, a baritone saxophonist from East Hanover, NJ, and freshman Jazz Studies major at William Paterson University, was the Jersey Jazz Magazine Rising Star in May. Gongora's trio will include two other William Paterson students, bassist Eli Leder from Avon, Ohio, and drummer Luke Richards from Sacramento, CA.

Funding for Jersey Jazz Live! 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. This program is also proudly supported by a grant from The Summit Foundation

SUMMER CAMARGO AND EVAN GONGORA PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS