INFORMATION FOR
--Weeklong series line-up includes the Jon-Erik Kellso Quinet on July 20, the Summer Camargo Quintet on July 21, the Joe Farnsworth Big Room Quartet featuring Emmet Cohen on July 22, the Duduka Da Fonseca Quartet with special guest Maucha Adnet on July 23, and the Dennis Mackrel Jazz Orchestra on July 24
William Paterson University continues its more than three-decade tradition of presenting summer jazz music on campus with the 33rd annual Summer Jazz Room, a weeklong series of evening concerts from July 20 to 24, 2026 in the Shea Center for Performing Arts on campus.
The annual concert series, which has drawn thousands of jazz fans to the University’s campus, is designed to make jazz more accessible to the community. This year’s line-up includes the Jon-Erik Kellso Quinet on July 20, the Summer Camargo Quintet on July 21, the Joe Farnsworth Big Room Quartet featuring Emmet Cohen on July 22, the Duduka Da Fonseca Quartet with special guest Maucha Adnet on July 23, and the Dennis Mackrel Jazz Orchestra on July 24.
Concerts begin every evening at 7:30 p.m. in Shea Center on campus. Tickets are $20 for each concert or $75 for a weeklong Summer Jazz Pass for all five concerts. Summer Jazz Passes must be purchased prior to the first show on Monday, July 20. Tickets for all shows can be purchased in advance via the online box office ticketing system or in person at the Shea Center Box Office. For tickets, visit wppresents.org or contact the box office at 973.720.2371 or boxoffice@wpunj.edu.
The Summer Jazz Room coincides with the University’s annual weeklong Summer Jazz Workshop for middle and high school jazz students with drummer, composer, and arranger Dennis Mackrel as artist-in-residence.
The Summer Jazz Room opens on Monday, July 20 with the Jon-Erik Kellso Quintet. Kellso has performed and recorded with many greats, including Milt Hinton, Wynton Marsalis, Dick Hyman, Catherine Russell, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Elvis Costello, Linda Ronstadt, Leon Redbone, Wycliffe Gordon, and Bob Wilber. He performs internationally in clubs and festivals, and locally at many New York City clubs, with weekly engagements at The Ear Inn with the EarRegulars and at Birdland with Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks. He can be heard on television and film soundtracks, including Ghost World, The Aviator, Mildred Pierce, Bessie, Revolutionary Road, Boardwalk Empire, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Kellso brings an all-star band to Shea, with reed player Jay Rattman, pianist Rossano Sportiello, bassist Tal Ronen, and drummer Charles Goold.
On Tuesday, July 21, the Summer Camargo Quintet takes the Shea Center stage. A hard-boppin’ trumpeter, composer, and bandleader, Camargo was recently named one of DownBeat magazine’s “25 for the Future” rising jazz stars. A native of Hollywood, Florida, and a graduate of the Juilliard School, Camargo is a regular performer at New York City jazz clubs like Dizzy’s and Birdland and is a member of the Mingus Big Band. She is the newest member of the Saturday Night Live house band and appears as a band member in the Broadway musical Just in Time. Camargo has toured with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, performed with Jon Batiste at the Newport Jazz Festival, and appeared as a guest artist at Wynton at 60. She released her debut album, To Whom I Love, on Blue Engine Records in March 2024; it received a notable review in DownBeat and was featured in the magazine’s “Hot Box.”
The midweek performance on Wednesday, July 22 features William Paterson University jazz alumnus Joe Farnsworth and his Big Room Quartet featuring Emmet Cohen. Farnsworth, one of today’s most highly regarded jazz drummers, has showcased his blazing speed, precision, musicality, and melodic playing on more than 400 recordings. Mentored by masters such as Alan Dawson, Arthur Taylor, and Jimmy Lovelace, Farnsworth has in turn become an inspiration and mentor to a younger generation of musicians. He has collaborated with a who’s who of jazz greats, including McCoy Tyner, Benny Golson, Harold Mabern, Cedar Walton, and Wynton Marsalis, and co-founded the acclaimed group One for All with a group of his outstanding peers, including Jim Rotondi, Eric Alexander, and Steve Davis. His seventh album as a leader, The Big Room, has received much critical acclaim. For this performance, he is joined by special guest pianist Emmet Cohen, alto saxophonist Sarah Hanahan, and bassist Peter Washington.
The Duduka Da Fonseca Quartet returns to the Shea Center stage on Thursday, July 23, along with special guest Maucha Adnet. Da Fonseca is one of the most recorded Brazilian jazz drummers of his generation, with appearances on more than 300 albums, including 25 as a leader or co-leader. He began performing professionally as a teenager, co-founding influential samba-jazz groups before moving to New York in 1975, where he built a rich and significant career bridging Brazilian and American jazz traditions. He has performed and recorded with a long list of iconic artists, including Antonio Carlos Jobim, Astrud Gilberto, Gerry Mulligan, Kenny Barron, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, and Eliane Elias. Da Fonseca is a longtime educator and author of the bestselling Brazilian Rhythms for Drumset. Along with guest vocalist Maucha Adnet and a group of well-established musicians, he brings a masterful blend of rhythmic sophistication, swing, and Brazilian spirit.
The weeklong series concludes on Friday, July 24 with the Dennis Mackrel Jazz Orchestra. Mackrel, a drummer, composer, arranger, bandleader, and this year’s WP Summer Jazz Workshop artist-in-residence, boasts a long list of performances and recordings including work with the Count Basie Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie’s All-Star Big Band, the American Jazz Orchestra, the Carla Bley Very Large Band, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and the Maria Schneider Orchestra. His arrangements and compositions have been recorded by, among others, the Basie and Gillespie bands, the University of North Texas One O’Clock Lab Band, the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, and on two Grammy-winning albums by the McCoy Tyner Big Band. Mackrel served as leader and conductor of the Count Basie Orchestra from 2010 to 2013. As an educator, he leads master classes, seminars, and workshops throughout the world and is currently director of jazz studies at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College.
William Paterson University has been a flagship of jazz education for more than 50 years and is recognized internationally for its Jazz Studies Program and nationally acclaimed Jazz Room Series of concerts each fall and spring.
The 33rd annual Summer Jazz Room series is funded, in part, by a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. WBGO is the event’s media sponsor.
For more information, visit wppresents.org or email boxoffice@wpunj.edu
