The Mulgrew Miller Trio and Jimmy Cobb's Mob headline this year's 15th annual Cape Bank Jazz @ The Point Festival in March in Somers Point.
Mulgrew Miller's trio performs Friday, March 9, in Somers Point at the Jazz @ The Point Festival.
The Somers Point Jazz Society has been bringing top-tier jazz concerts and musicians to the Atlantic City/Ocean City, New Jersey region for several years now.
The non-profit group, which presents jazz concerts in order to help raise funds for music and arts programs in the Somers Point School District, has also put together 14 Jazz @ The Point Festivals and has just unveiled the line-up for this year's 15th annual festival, which will take place March 8-11 at a variety of venues in the bayside town on the Jersey Shore.
This year's four-day jazz festival will feature 10 groups, each featuring amazing talents, with a few iconic jazz figures headlining as well. Organizers of the annual festival are touting the event as the "greatest jazz festival value in the universe."
A pre-event price of $60 per person is good for the entire four-day festival.
And with such legends as Mulgrew Miller (in a trio setting) and Jimmy Cobb (with his Cobb's Mob) on the bill, the pre-sale price is pretty outstanding.
The festival, which kicks off on a Thursday and runs through Sunday, is made possible in part through the New Jersey State Council of the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts through the Local Arts Grant administered by Atlantic County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs.
Sponsors for this event include: Cape Bank, Shore Memorial Hospital, Richard Stockton College of NJ, Walt’s Original Primo Pizza, Sobieski, WRTQ, Kramer Beverage, Pier 4 by the Bay, Mission Point Church, New Jersey State Council of the Arts, South Jersey Industries, and The Heart and Soul Foundation.
Here is the complete 15th annual Cape Bank Jazz @ The Point Festival Schedule:
• Thursday, March 8: Venissa Santi Quintet performing at the Mission Point Church, 9th Street and New York Ave., from 7 to 10pm, and the Luke O’Reilly Quartet performing at Gregory’s Restaurant, 900 Shore Road, from 8:30 to 11:30pm.
• Friday, March 9, the Mulgrew Miller Trio performs in the Ballroom at Sandi Pointe Coastal Bistro, 908 Shore Road, with sets at 8 and 10pm. Also on Friday, with sets at 8 and 10pm, the Keith Hollis Quartet performs at Gregory’s, 900 Shore Road, Somers Point. Concluding the evening, the Sheryl Bailey Quartet performs in the dining room at Sandi Pointe, with sets at 9:30 and 11:30pm.
Pictured: Jimmy Cobb, who played drums on hundreds of jazz sessions, including Miles Davis' classic Kind of Blue album.
• Saturday, March 10: The Walt Weiskopf Sextet performs in the Ballroom at Sandi Pointe, with sets at 8 and 10pm. Also on Saturday, with sets at 8 and 10pm, Three Blind Mice performs at Gregory’s.
Saturday night concludes with Jimmy Cobb & Cobb’s Mob performing in the dining room at Sandi Pointe, sets at 9:30 and 11:30pm.
• Sunday afternoon, March 1: The Tim Horner Quintet will perform at Gregory’s with sets starting at 2 and 4pm. The festival will conclude with the Grant Stewart Quartet with special guest Hilary Gardner performing in the Sandi Pointe Ballroom, sets beginning at 4 and 6pm.
Sponsors for this event include: Cape Bank, Shore Memorial Hospital, Richard Stockton College of NJ, Walt’s Original Primo Pizza, Sobieski, WRTQ, Kramer Beverage, Pier 4 by the Bay, Mission Point Church, New Jersey State Council of the Arts, South Jersey Industries, and The Heart and Soul Foundation.
This festival is made possible in part through the New Jersey State Council of the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts through the Local Arts Grant administered by Atlantic County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs.
For tickets and more information call 609-927-6677 or visit the Somers Point Jazz Society at spjazz.org
The Mulgrew Miller Trio is one of this year’s headlining acts at the 15th annual Somers Point Jazz Society Jazz @ the Point Festival, which runs Thursday through Sunday, March 8-11. Miller’s trio performs two sets (8 and 10pm) Friday, March 9, in the banquet room of Sandi Pointe Coastal Bistro (see sidebar for details).
In its first three years, the SPJS Benefit and Silent Auction has raised between $4,000 and $5,000 annually based on a $20-per-person donation, and the silent-auction sale of items donated by the community. This year’s donations include several jazz-oriented pieces of artwork.
One reason the Cape Bank Jazz @ The Point festival has not only survived but thrived regardless of the economy is that it’s given jazz fans top-flight entertainment for a reasonable fee. That’s certainly the case with the 13th version of the festival, which takes place this Thursday through Sunday, March 10-13, at three venues in Somers Point.
Also: 'Boardwalk Empire' themed Drew Toonz, and Hot Tuna/Charlie Musselwhite at Stockton PAC.
The Somers Point Jazz Society has been blessed with the support of some of southern New Jersey's best jazz artists even as they support jazz in southern New Jersey.
If the popularity of jazz as a musical genre ever waned in southern New Jersey, it would certainly seem to be back on the upswing today. Some venues offer live jazz on a regular basis, such as Steve ...
In a classic clapboard home near the bay in Somers Point, Nick Regine talked with us about his favorite "gigs" -- as founder, charter member, and president of the Somers Point Jazz Society, which pro...
By Ray Schweibert Walt Gregory's appreciation for all facets of jazz has been a gradual work-in-progress, but his willingness to become involved in the Cape Savings Bank Jazz @ The Point festival was immediate. Gregory's Restaurant and Bar, which Walt Gregory's family has owned since 1946, was one of the original venues to host jazz performances since the festival began as a single-day event 10 years ago. Now a four-day, five-venue event that's gained immense popularity, Gregory's has become the spot where performers and enthusiasts alike kind of gather to kick back at the end of each day. "Nicky (event producer Nick Regine) has been kind enough to oblige my request to be the late-night place," says Gregory. "As a smaller venue that has music until 1am (the others end at 10pm Thursday, Friday and Saturday), we've kind of developed the reputation as a place where other members and performers can drift into late at night." Another compelling connection between Gregory's and the local jazz scene stems from Walt Gregory's befriending Mike Randolph when the two were college classmates at the University of Miami. Randolph's father, William "PoPsie" Randolph, was the preeminent photographer of the New York City music scene from the...
While serving as education and recreation director for the Somers Point school system, Nick Regine was responsible for providing a variety of events and activities that were shared between the schools and the local community. In 1999 he incorporated his love of jazz into a one-afternoon festival intended to raise funds for a school support group called the Foundation for Education. The jazz festival was assembled on a shoestring budget and consisted largely of local musicians, but managed to carry on from one year to the next and grow incrementally. Regine subsequently retired from the school system but continued as development officer for the foundation. In doing so, he and other volunteers were able to create a non-profit organization called the Somers Point Jazz Society that worked in conjunction with the foundation. The collaborative effort has spawned a four-day, five-venue festival called the Cape Savings Bank Jazz @ The Point, which takes place March 6-9 and incorporates some of the top names in jazz. "I knew, more than likely, that this event was not going to continue after I retired from the school, because you have to have a real interest in this kind of music to pursue it with...
Peering out of the second floor window of his white stucco home on East Mill Street in Northfield, Art Blakey could see nothing but sky and greenery. He used to say it felt like he was in a tree house -- miles away from the hustle and bustle of New York City or Paris. If the the late musician had peered into the future, however -- say about 30 years -- he couldn't have possibly foreseen the events that would transpire in his temporarily adopted hometown region this weekend. The Cape Savings Bank Jazz @ The Point festival, March 1-4, being presented as a multi-event tribute to the jazz legend, will honor a man who spent the better part of the 1950s through the 1980s helping to shape (and keep alive) the hard bop side of jazz. While doing so he performed all over the world, recording on hundreds of sessions and, perhaps most significantly, fostering the careers of numerous young jazz players who would become huge forces on the jazz scene themselves -- Clifford Brown, Keith Jarrett and Wynton Marsalis, to name a mere few. Although he was born in Pittsburgh and spent most of his life as a...
What has evolved into a most popular and highly anticipated festival featuring many top-flight jazz musicians from in and around the area turns 12 years old this month.
(Originally published Sept. 2008) LAST MONTH DURING ITS SET at the Somers Point beach concert series, Jersey Shore rock trio the Billy Walton Band broke into "On the Dark Side," the 1984 John Cafferty hit fr...
Bob Perkins, longtime Philadelphia-area jazz program radio host, has been named the 2012 recipient of the Somers Point Jazz Society’s fifth annual Jazz Master Award.
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1. Bob Ferguson said... on Feb 28, 2012 at 12:39PM
“Cape Jazz @The Point provides a great opportunity to indulge yourself with the sounds of some truly world class jazz artists. Come down March 7 to the 11th and feast on some great music !”