Anderson Brothers to Celebrate American Songbook at January Jersey Jazz LIVE! in Madison

WILL & PETER ANDERSON with ADAM MOEZINIA
WHEN: Sunday, January 5, 3 PM
WHERE: Madison (NJ) Community Arts Center, 10 Kings Road in Madison
ADMISSION:  $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, log onto artsintrinsic.ticketleap.com/njjs-anderson-brothers-01-05-25/

Multi-reedists Will and Peter Anderson are well known for their Songbook Summit series, which features jazz interpretations of Great American Songbook composers. On Sunday, January 5, the twin brothers will be joined by guitarist Adam Moezinia to play an eclectic version of that series at the New Jersey Jazz Society’s Jersey Jazz LIVE! concert. 

This time, according to Will Anderson, rather than focusing on one composer, the concert will be “a mix of a lot of composers. And, we will talk a little about how they differ.” Some of the writers, Anderson added, “had jazz in their heads—George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Jimmy Van Heusen, and Hoagy Carmichael. Others, like Jerome Kern, did not.”

The Andersons met Moezinia when they were all students at Juilliard about 14 years ago. The sound of the trio, Anderson explained, will be “kind of like the chamber jazz aesthetic, softer, more intimate. But, when the rhythm gets going, we can swing out!”

Reviewing the Anderson Brothers’ 2019 Outside in Music album, Featuring Jimmy Cobb, Edward Bianco of All About Jazz praised the mellow treatments of Vernon Duke’s “Autumn in New York” and Van Heusen’s “Polka Dots & Moonbeams,” marking the latter as “one of the (album’s) finest.” But he also pointed out the Andersons’ ability to swing. “On (Frank Churchill’s) ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ and the time-honored standard from Duke Pearson, ‘Jeanine’, the boys are wild with phenomenal call and response performances.” Featuring Jimmy Cobb was released in May 2020, the same month that the legendary drummer passed away (on May 24 at the age of 91). It was probably one of his last recordings.

The Anderson Brothers have performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center, and they were part of the Grammy Award winning soundtrack of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks. Moezinia was in vocalist Freddie Cole’s quartet and has shared the stage with such jazz giants as Herbie Hancock and Wynton Marsalis.

Will Anderson has written a book, Songbook Summit: Fifteen Pioneers of American Sound (Reviewed by Joe Lang in the November 2024 issue of Jersey Jazz). He will have copies of the book available for purchase at Jersey Jazz LIVE!

The Anderson Brothers Trio will be preceded by a Rising Stars opening act featuring a trio led by alto saxophonist Anish Alur, a senior at Ridge High School in Basking Ridge. Alur was a member of this year’s New Jersey High School All-State Jazz Ensemble and was part of the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra led by Gerald Clayton at the Monterey Jazz Festival. A 2024 Young Arts Award recipient, Alur studied privately with educator/alto saxophonist Julius Tolentino (the December Jersey Jazz Magazine cover story).

The other members of the trio will be bassist Chris Maratea and drummer Ishan Alur, Anish’s brother. Maratea is a Ridge High School graduate, who now attends College of the Holy Cross. He is a past member of the New Jersey All-State Jazz Ensemble. Ishan Alur attends Newark Academy in Livingston where Tolentino directs the jazz program, which finished first in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 2024 Essentially Ellington competition.

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. This event is generously sponsored by Rachel Domber/ARBORS Records.