By Gregory Burrus | Posted Tuesday, January 11, 2022
2021. What a fabulous, poignant, reflective year. In the beginning, we thought about it being a year of restart, recovery and renewal. I think we all lost some family, friends and, in our case, some fabulous musicians. Unfortunately, the losses continued so it was definitely a challenging year, but we found a way to live again. For listeners, a live music concert is a pleasurable social event that is among the most visceral and memorable forms of musical engagement. It's the same for musicians, with the added note that for many it’s not a side business, it’s their lifeblood and the thing that keeps them alive. With that in mind, we soldiered on through the year making music and great memories.
2021 Year In Review
As you can see, we made some great memories. Here are the 2021 lineup highlights:
In January 2021 we thought we’d start the year off with our Jazz973 program at The Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, but no such luck as lots of uncertainties were still around, so our favorite Jazz Venue, Clement’s Place Jazz, did not have any programming.
For February for the Town of South Orange, we had a musical tribute and a South Orange Street renaming to honor our fallen buddy Lee Boz May. It was cold but a wonderful day.
For March, we celebrated Women's History Month with a wonderful online performance titled WHM2021 “Refresh in Progress” by Ife Basim. We also had a stirring and moving Cello performance by Caylen Bryant as we all Reflected Together For COVID-19 Victims at the lake in Meadowlands Park in South Orange, NJ. We tested the outdoor live music scene as Jazzy Nights, which joined the South Orange Jazz scene right before the pandemic hit us, turned into Jazzy Afternoons at The Fox & Falcon with an outdoor live R&B performance by MPACK. It was a big hit as folks starved for live music came out like crazy. It was really a great thing to experience.
For April, we honored Jazz Appreciation Month. Other than one rainout, it was a truly swinging set of Sunday afternoon performances which you can read more about here: Jazzy Afternoons South Orange Presents "Jazz Across The Generations" to Honor Jazz Appreciation Month 2021. The weather was great and music/the vibe was truly jumpin’.
Over the Months of May, June, July, August and September, we ran a number of concurrent live music performances. Our Summer Saturday South Orange Downtown performances ran every Saturday, 2 performances a day, along with our monthly Sunday Jazz On Sloan program at the South Orange Gazebo. There were about 60 fabulous performances. We rolled through Summer Wednesdays with a jumping Wednesday afternoon R&B-driven City of Orange Farmers Market. From 12-5 pm this program grew from a few attendees to a full house every week. We were also honored to crank up live music for the town of Cranford and had a really great Downtown Cranford Summer Sounds every Thursday evening all summer. Folks also enjoyed some great live music bands we provided to the town of Westfield with the Open Quimby Live Music program.
In September, we started with the Maplewood Community Music Maplewood Porchfest which was a nonstop all-day community fest of porch owners, honk paraders, and lemonade stands, and what really made it happen were some awesome local music performers and enthusiastic attendees. After a July weather cancellation, thanks to South Orange Downtown we conducted the 5th Annual 24 Hours of Music Jamboree, adapted for our times. Saturday gave us 12 hours of music, and Overnight gave us online musical performances including a wonderful performance from Japan by the Kumiko Tanaka Trio. On Sunday, we were finally able to host a Tribute to Darryl Clark. It was a glorious 24 Hours Of Music Jamboree headlined by the famous Nat Adderley Jr. Trio and members of Darryl’s former band. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon of beautiful music and great tributes.
October finally saw the return of our beloved Clements Place Jazz Venue, and while all the performances through December were great, a few highlights were 87-year-old Houston Person with Matt Chertkoff and 94-year-old Bassist Bill Crow with 19-year-old Leonieke Scheuble performing for our Jazz973 program on Wednesday evenings. This year the October Live Music Fest took over South Orange, NJ Spiotta Park and we had a really good time every weekend (when the weather cooperated). Meanwhile, the town of Cranford, NJ reached 150-years-old and MPACK was there to perform. Also in October, we performed for Pink Out Cranford Events. Finally, we performed a few weekends for the wonderful Cranford’s 14th Annual Scarecrow Stroll which had some amazing scarecrows.
November brought us some wonderful live music performance opportunities. Thanks to Linda Moody, wife of famed saxophonist James Moody, we were Making History as Linda Moody Honored the James Moody Scholars at 100 Blanchard Rd. in South Orange, NJ. It was a beautiful elegant night to remember. This was one swinging jamming experience. We then happily covered A Smooth Jazz Explosion Lights Up the Woodland in Maplewood. This event was very cool, as it opened up with an exciting group of young teenage jazz musicians from our town, The Baker Street Trio. Then, we got to experience the fabulous Smooth Jazz performances of Yankee great Bernie Williams and the phenomenal Blood, Sweat & Tears Guitarist Gil Parris and his band. It was definitely a really great performance to remember.
December ended with our entertainer Lynette Sheard joining Mr. and Ms. Claus on a Holiday Chorals Walk around Downtown Cranford, NJ. We had a fun time performing with the return of the award-winning South Orange Open-Air Holiday Market. We closed the month out in Maplewood where we enjoyed another great local performance, where Local Resident Jacqueline Lee Opened for 2 Contemporary Jazz Stars, and a fabulous off-the-chain performance at the Woodlands where Marion Meadows and Alex Bugnon delivered an outstanding smooth jazz performance.
Of course along the way we conducted a number of private events as well.
Venues Around Our Towns
2021 consisted of multiple live music events, sometimes on the same day, conducted across multiple towns like South Orange, Newark, Cranford, Maplewood, the City of Orange, Westfield, West Orange, Montclair and more. You can read more here.
Videography. Livestream
Last year, we continued producing live music events and promoting them on various platforms. We were also happy to say that we continued documenting these events via video and livestreamIng them on multiple platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and other websites. You can watch them here:
https://www.youtube.com/gregoryburrus
https://vimeo.com/gregoryburrus
In The News
In addition, we continued to provide additional artists promotions via articles and blog posts on local news sites, TAPinto, Patch, Newsrecord and across New Jersey via JerseyIndie and JerseyNYC. Read more below:
https://www.jerseyindie.com/ji-blogger-gregory-burrus
https://patch.com/users/gregburrus
Social Media
As we move through another year of unknowns and another “Are we inside or outside?” life, please continue to stay in touch with all our live music events. We are programming events for 2022, so check out the links and signup to know when we will go live again:
https://www.facebook.com/gregory.burrus
https://www.instagram.com/gregoryburrus
https://twitter.com/gregoryburrus
https://www.facebook.com/gregoryburruspromotions
Stay Safe, Stay Healthy and Stay Connected.
Thank you again for joining us on this live music journey.
About Gregory Burrus
Photography by Patrick Hilaire @l1stener.
Gregory Burrus spends his time as a Photojournalist, Live Music Producer, Promoter, Videographer, Arts and Entertainment Writer, Blogger, Business Reviewer, and Community Events Reporter. Gregory develops, manages, promotes and documents live music programs in the Greater New Jersey and New York Area.
http://gregoryburrusproductions.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregburrus
https://24hoursofmusicjamboree.com
