New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Bethany Baptist Church Celebrate 25 Years Of Free Monthly Jazz Vespers Concerts
Performances run February 1, March 1, April 5, May 3 and June 7, 2025.
Co-presented by Bethany Baptist Church and NJPAC, February's Jazz Vespers featured artist is Sheila Jordan. At age 93, the jazz vocalist is renowned as a pioneer of bebop and scat singing.
Sat 3.01 The Great City of Newark Jazz & Blues All Stars
Antoinette Montague - vocals
Leo Johnson - saxophone
Brandon McCune - piano
Earl Grice - drums
Co-presented by Bethany Baptist Church and NJPAC, March's Bethany Vesper Concert Series features The Great City of Newark Jazz & Blues All Stars. Vocalist Antoinette Montague is joined by Leo Johnson(saxophone), Brandon McCune (piano) and Earl Grice (drums). These artists are noted for their superb dedication to Newark's jazz scene, including performance, education and advocacy. They'll bring it on home to Bethany with soul-stirring jazz, blues and swinging songs of Zion to lift and encourage.
Sat 4.05 Rhoda Scott
Co-presented by Bethany Baptist Church and NJPAC, April's Bethany Vesper Concert Series combines jazz music and worship with organist Rhoda Scott, "undoubtedly one of the most dazzling legends of jazz" (Paris-Move). The daughter of an AME minister from Weymouth Township, New Jersey, she learned to play the organ at church. After moving to France early in her career, she launched to superstardom - becoming known as "l'Organiste aux Pieds Nus" ("The Barefoot Lady") because of her unique habit of removing her shoes to play. Newark will be wowed by her high-voltage mix of hard bop and soul jazz.
Sat 5.03 Arturo O'Farrill
Co-presented by Bethany Baptist Church and NJPAC, May's Bethany Vesper Concert Series featurespianist Arturo O'Farrill, a familiar face to NJPAC jazz audiences. Born in Mexico and raised in New York, the six-time GRAMMY winner is a prolific musician, composer and passionate promoter of Latin music and its cultural heritage. He plays with bands and orchestras all over the world, including his own Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and the Arturo O'Farrill Sextet. DownBeat calls him "one of our greatest living pianists."
Sat 6.07 Cassandra Wilson
Co-presented by Bethany Baptist Church and NJPAC, June's Bethany Vesper Concert Series features jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson. The New Yorker hails her as "one of the most inventive and captivating singers of her generation," with a "smokehouse contralto" equally adept with jazz, blues, country, folk and pop. The GRAMMY winner and NEA Jazz Master is no stranger to Bethany Baptist and NJPAC. Her 2020 concert was part of an MLK Jr. celebration and the 80th birthday concert honoring Dorthaan Kirk.
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