JTole Music

Only at Newark Academy could I teach a fishing class for 9 days for what we call June Term. This was the first year and we had 12 students catch 94 fish on five different bodies of water, which included largemouth bass, sunfish, crappie, pike, pickerel, and trout. We ended the class with a fish fry with all the sides. Last pic is AI. ?

Tolentino’s tonight at Moore’s!

Happy Birthday to two legends of this music! Louis Hayes and Christian McBride!

Happy Heavenly Birthday to JMac! A constant inspiration to keep on truckin’! (his phrase)

Proud Band Director long brag post here! First off all the students I helped with their college auditions got into there top choices! One in Frost and Northwestern as jazz majors, and two at Vanderbilt for jazz! Excited for two of my current saxophone students at NA who both made all states the last two years. Our lead alto player, Noah Tamiso a winner of the DownBeat jazz soloist award! Our lead tenor player, Jay Thatte won the Gerry Mulligan Challenge which comes with a brand new Selmer Saxophone ($10,000 horn!) he was also selected for the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra (along with one of my outside students- Giancarlo). Also happy to see two former students in college in the DownBeat Awards too- Ben Collins-Siegel at Frost and Nathan Choi as part of Cornell Combo. And another former student Nick Thorpe won a scholarship from NJ Jazz Society for his jazz composition. Have to shout all my students that grinded an audition. You all got so much from the experience and I hope we get to do it again next year!

Last day of the semester at Princeton University! I’ve been lucky to work with so many brainiac students studying jazz with me these last 3 years. Several moving on from undergrad, masters to doctoral, studying abroad next year and even a doctoral student. Christmas came early and I love all my gifts. This little portrait of some JTole poses is classic!

In the news…

We are all so shocked. Kiyoshi was so down to play with my sad ass when I first to moved to town and gave me some incredible experiences playing in his group. Such a beautiful spirit.