Jun 10, 2025 4:13 PM
Theo Croker’s Dream … Manifested!
Partway through his early set at Smoke Jazz Club, Theo Croker blinks the room back into focus. He leans over the piano.…
William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. will celebrate the opening of its Living Jazz Archive on April 24 with a concert featuring Clark Terry as guest soloist with the university’s jazz orchestra.
The archive includes manuscripts, awards, instruments and other memorabilia donated by Terry, as well as archival materials of the late trumpeter Thad Jones and the late pianist James Williams.
Located in College Hall on the university’s campus, the archive provides students, researchers and visitors with the opportunity to explore original jazz manuscripts and other materials that are an important part of jazz history. The archive includes a number of Terry’s original big band arrangements, custom vintage trumpets, pencil music manuscripts, historic recordings, photos and other memorabilia. It also contains original pencil manuscripts by Jones, the founding director of the school’s jazz studies program, as well as original manuscripts of compositions by Williams, who served as director of the program from 1999 until his death in 2004.
The concert will take place at the Shea Center for Performing Arts. Terry and the William Paterson Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of David Demsey, will perform a program of Terry’s original scores dating to the 1950s, which Terry has donated to the archive. The concert is the culmination of a weeklong residency by Terry on the campus.
“The creation of the William Paterson University Living Jazz Archive represents a historic step for our campus,” Demsey said. “Unlike other ‘sealed’ archive collections, it is Clark Terry’s wish and our intent to use the collections for active teaching, learning, performance and research and to integrate the use and study of these materials into the curriculum of our program.”
More info: wpunj.edu
To record Dream Manifest (Dom Recs), Croker convened artists from his current and recent past ensembles, plus special guests.
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