INFORMATION FOR
Bill Charlap, the acclaimed pianist and director of jazz studies at William Paterson University, teams up with bass giant Christian McBride and drum master Kenny Washington for a concert of sublime jazz trio music at the highest level on Sunday, October 11 as part of the fall 2026 Jazz Room series on campus.
The concert, which begins at at 3:00 p.m. in the Shea Center for Performing Arts on campus, is sponsored by Barbara Thoen in honor of her husband Wayne Thoen.
Other fall series performers include the Art Blakey Alumni Band: Carl Allen’s Messengers of Jazz on Sunday, November 1, and saxophonist Bob Mintzer with the WP Jazz Orchestra on Sunday, November 22. All concerts begin at 3:00 p.m.
Tickets for this concert are $36 for the general public, and $33 for WP faculty, staff, alumni, and senior citizens. WP students are admitted free with ID. The concert will be preceded by “Sittin’ In,” the Jazz Room’s accompanying “meet the artist” concert preview featuring interviews with jazz artists and guest speakers. This informal discussion, free to all Jazz Room ticketholders, begins at 2:00 p.m., one hour prior to the concert, in Shea Recital Hall 101. For tickets or additional information, visit wp-presents.org, or contact the Shea Center Box Office at 973.720.2371 or boxoffice@wpunj.edu.
Pianist Bill Charlap has performed with many of the leading artists of our time including Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ron Carter, Phil Woods, Gerry Mulligan and Tony Bennett. He won a 2016 Grammy for Best Traditional Pop vocal Album for Tony Bennett and Bill Charlap: The Silver Lining, The Songs of Jerome Kern, and has been nominated for four more Grammys, including his 2025 album with vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, Elemental. Charlap joined William Paterson University in 2015 as director of its internationally known Jazz Studies Program, now in its 53rd year. He tours all over the world, and his annual New York engagements include appearances at Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Village Vanguard. From 2004 through 2023, he was artistic director of New York City’s Jazz in July Festival at 92NY. He has produced concerts for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Chicago Symphony Center, and the Hollywood Bowl. Among the honorees at 92NY’s 2025 gala, he received Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 2024 Award for Artistic Excellence.
Bassist Christian McBride is one of the most preeminent musicians of his time. Over the last three decades, the 11-time Grammy winner is known as a dynamic musician and recording artist, a prolific composer-arranger-producer, a distinguished curator of culture, and a dedicated educator and mentor. A prolific bandleader, McBride’s ensembles are each distinctive extensions of his tremendous creative inspiration, which span and synthesize straight-ahead, experimental, free-leaning jazz, funk, soul, Latin, hip hop, and rhythm and blues. His celebrated groups — Inside Straight, The Christian McBride Big Band, Ursa Major, Christian McBride’s New Jawn, The Christian McBride Trio, and A Christian McBride Situation — have not only enjoyed consistent critical acclaim, but they have also emphasized his role as an early presenter of rising stars, like saxophonist Nicole Glover, pianist Christian Sands, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, and drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. McBride also hosts NPR’s public radio program Jazz Night in America as well as The Lowdown: Conversations with Christian on SiriusXM. He is artistic director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, the TD James Moody Jazz Festival, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and Jazz House Kids.
Drummer Kenny Washington is renowned as one of the most enlightened and proficient performers and teachers of the art of jazz drumming. Arriving on the scene in 1977, Washington has been in constant demand and has performed and recorded with many legendary artists including Lee Konitz, Betty Carter, Johnny Griffin, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, George Cables, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Sonny Stitt, James Spaulding, Phil Woods, Bill Charlap, Ahmad Jamal, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Milt Jackson, Bobby Watson, Curtis Lundy, and, Tommy Flanagan, to name a few. Washington has taught at Juilliard, SUNY Purchase, and New York University, and continues to share his knowledge with hundreds of students each year.
William Paterson University has been a flagship of jazz education for more than 50 years and is recognized nationally and internationally for its Jazz Studies Program and nationally acclaimed Jazz Room series of concerts each fall and spring.
The Jazz Room series is the longest-running program of its kind in the United States. Launched in 1978, the Jazz Room has welcomed more than 500 jazz legends to the stage, including Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, Joe Williams, Marian McPartland, Slide Hampton, Kenny Burrell, Joe Lovano, Kenny Garrett, Clark Terry, Michael and Randy Brecker, the Vanguard Orchestra, and more. Concerts have encompassed the entire spectrum of jazz, from early jazz and swing to avant garde, and from intimate solo performances to big bands.
The performance series provides support for the University’s internationally renowned Jazz Studies Program, founded in 1973. The program draws students from across the United States and abroad under the current direction of Grammy Award-winning pianist Bill Charlap.
The Jazz Room at William Paterson University has been made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. WBGO 88.3 FM serves as media sponsor for the series.
