By Bryant Romero—

The New Jersey City University jazz quartet group consists of a mixture of graduate and undergraduate students and is one of the ensembles that has been put together for this semester.

The group has been focusing on the music of the jazz great, pianist Cedar Walton and is one of only a dozen groups from other colleges that have been invited to perform at WBGO-FM (88.3), a jazz radio station that will be holding a month long series of live performances as part of National Jazz Appreciation Month.

The group includes pianist Barry Spatz, a graduate student from New Brunswick, saxophonist Neil Johnson, a graduate student from Dallas, Texas, bassist Anthony Perez, graduate student of Ridgefield, and drummer Ramsey Norman of Lincroft, who is the only undergraduate of the group and currently majors in Jazz performance at NJCU.

The group is instructed by trumpeter and composer Nathan Eklund, an adjunct professor.

“This is one of the ensembles for this current semester. Each semester, jazz performance majors are required to play in different ensembles to attain their degree. This combo was organized by the department at the beginning of the semester and then selected to represent the university when this opportunity arose. It is a group of some of the more experienced musicians in the department, a mix of graduate and undergraduate students,” said Eklund.

According to Eklund, this group was designed to study the works of Cedar Walton. All of the music they will perform at WBGO and throughout the semester will be compositions of Walton’s work and other arrangements that he created for his group. Experienced musicians were needed for this task as Cedar Walton music is very complex and difficult to duplicate.

“The quartet works to build a cohesive ensemble sound and creatively improvise over the structure of the composition. These are elements familiar to all jazz musicians but Walton’s music is sophisticated and requires a high level of musicianship to play,” said Eklund.

So far the group has performed at events on campus and at the end of the semester they will perform an end of the year Jazz Bash on May 2 in Rossey Hall that will complete their semester.

In 2010, Cedar Walton was inducted as a member of the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters, the nation’s highest honor for jazz artists. Walton has remained active to this day with many of his compositions adopted as jazz standards. “Boliva” is possibly Walton’s most popular composition.