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Summer Camargo
Summer Camargo, 21, is a trumpet player in her fourth year at The Juilliard School, majoring in jazz studies. She is a recipient of a Jerome L. Greene Fellowship at The Juilliard School. Summer, born and raised in Hollywood, FL, has been a member of the prestigious All-National Jazz Band, the Jazz Band of America, the Grammy Band, the Next Generation Women in Jazz Combo, the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, and was named a National YoungArts Foundation Merit winner, and Honorable Mention in Jazz Trumpet, as well as Merit winner in Jazz Composition. Summer was also Downbeat Magazine’s Outstanding Student Jazz Performance Award recipient. At the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Essentially Ellington Festivals, she received Outstanding Trumpet Soloist Awards, and in 2018, Summer won the Ella Fitzgerald Outstanding Soloist Award, given to the best soloist in the festival. Camargo also participated in the Vail Jazz Workshop, Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz, the Monterey Jazz Festival Gala and played as a guest artist at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala and the Midwest Clinic. In 2020, Summer joined the Ulysses Owens, Jr. Big Band, participated in the Women in Jazz Organization Mentorship, and was awarded an Outstanding Trumpet Soloist Award at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s inaugural Jack Rudin Championship; she recently joined the GLUCK Fellowship at The Juilliard School and is the recipient of the 2020 Laurie Frink Career Grant. Most recently, Summer joined NBC's Saturday Night Live House Band, toured with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for their 2022 Big Band Holidays series with Samara Joy, and has been playing with her own band in prestigious venues in NYC such as Dizzy's and Birdland.
As an educator, Summer has been a panelist for Jazz at Lincoln Center's Jazz Congress for the "Talking Trumpets: Discussing Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong" with the other panelists being Jon Faddis, Sean Jones, Bria Skonberg, and Wynton Marsalis. She has performed masterclasses jazz festivals and conferences in Montana, Wisconson, Florida, and South Dakota. Some of her mini-masterclasses have been featured on several social media platforms such as Carnegie Hall's NYO-U and Jazz Memes, and she recently was a presenter at the 2023 JEN Conference.
As a composer, Camargo won the Dr. J. Douglas White Student Composition Contest in 2018 with her first, original big band chart, "Leap Froggin'." She was honored to have the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra record and perform her piece at the 2018 Essentially Ellington Festival. She was also commissioned to arrange her original composition "80 Tears of Joy" for the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, and she recently was commissioned to compose an original for the jazz ensemble at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. Three of her original tunes were also featured in FONT Music in 2020.
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Melinda Rose Rodriguez and Frenchy Romero: I'm On My Way
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Longtime friends from their Miami days, vocalist Melinda Rose Rodriguez and pianist Frenchy Romero offer their debut collaboration, I'm on My Way. It is a ten-track collection of known fare, as well as original compositions from Rodriguez. The album is a festive musical playground for the two artists, both of whom will be performing in elite U.S. Army Bands in jny: Washington, DC. Curtains rise with Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," an easy-swinging appetizer with Rodriguez ...
Continue ReadingMelinda Rose & Frenchy Romero: I'm On My Way
by Dan Bilawsky
A co-led date from vocalist Melinda Rose and pianist Frenchy Romero seemed to be preordained. The two grew up mere blocks away from each other in Miami, connected as teens and bonded immediately over a love for jazz, and developed a strong rapport at a weekly jam session. As their lives moved forward, they stayed in touch and played out during breaks in their undergraduate days, kept the gigging going when they were each in graduate school in Illinois, and ...
Continue ReadingLouis Armstrong, Bria Skonberg, John Coltrane and Summer Camargo
by Joe Dimino
The 866th Show begins with Summer Camargo and music from her debut album To Whom I Love. From there, we get into a good crop of seasoned cats like Zachary Bartholomew, Jamie Baum, Bria Skonberg and Tony Romano. In between, we hear classics from the likes of Woody Herman and John Coltrane. To wrap it up, we get into newly unearthed Louis Armstrong music via a BBC Live Session. Dig the jazz, my friends. Playlist Summer Camargo 80 ...
Continue ReadingSummer Camargo: To Whom I Love
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Trumpet artist Summer Camargo startled the music and entertainment worlds when, as a brilliant 22-year-old Juilliard grad, she landed the highly-desired trumpet chair in the Saturday Night Live band. Camargo now adds to her lengthy list of achievements with her debut album, To Whom I Love. She and a cadre of New York all-stars deliver nine varied tracks (seven Camargo originals and two jazz workhorses) on which she and her colleagues shine. JP Shuffle," upbeat and catchy, ...
Continue ReadingGrace Fox Big Band: Eleven O'Seven
by Jack Bowers
In the long history of jazz, it is rare for a teenage musician to establish a big band, let alone lead one. In fact (historians will have to verify this), it may never have happened. One thing is certainno teenage woman has ever formed a big band and become its leader. Until now. Meet trumpeter Grace Fox, a nineteen-year-old student at the Manhattan School of Music, founder and leader of the seventeen-member, all-female Grace Fox Big Band, which has recorded ...
Continue ReadingUlysses Owens Jr. Big Band: Soul Conversations
by Jack Bowers
Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.'s Big Band comes out swinging on its debut recording, Soul Conversations, thundering through Michael Dease's incendiary arrangement of the Dizzy Gillespie/John Lewis flame-thrower, Two Bass Hit." For more such heat, however, the listener must move forward to Track 5, John Coltrane's impulsive Giant Steps," thence to Track 9 for Charles Turner III's earnest homage to Harlem Harlem Harlem," on which he doubles as vocalist. That's not to say that everything in between is ...
Continue ReadingConnor Munroe: Then + Now
by Edward Blanco
Ransom Everglades High School saxophonist Connor Munroe, from Miami, FL, has been playing the sax since he was nine years-old and has been selected for twelve All-American and All-State jazz bands among his many awards. He here presents his debut album, the warm and charming Then + Now. Offering a light repertoire of five well-known ballad standards and one original composition, Munroe leads a large ensemble, including a six-piece string section, provides the arrangements and conducts the orchestra in producing ...
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