Even with a music career that lasts more than 25 years, most jazz musicians cannot look at their professional credits and see live performances at the Hollywood Bowl, Essence Festival, Bonnaroo, Coachella or the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
Jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, arranger and composer Matt Cappy, a Berlin, Camden County native, has enough talent and is open minded enough to have earned those opportunities with Jill Scott, Queen Latifah, Dave Matthews Band, Jay-Z and the Mavericks, respectively.
Cappy’s appearance on retro-soul albums such as Scott’s “Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2” in 2004 and Musiq Soulchild’s “Juslisen” in 2002 set the foundation for the success he has had later in his career.
“It was timeless music. It was that good,” said Cappy, who was a member of Scott’s Fatback Taffy backing band from 1999 to 2008.
Cappy, who added he loves traditional jazz, will show off more of that side of his musical repertoire with his quartet along with appearances by Howard Paul and the Benedetto All-Stars, the John Pizzarelli Trio and others during the “Jersey Fresh” Jazz @ the Point Festival, Thursday through Saturday at Gregory’s Restaurant & Bar and the Gateway Playhouse in Somers Point.
The event is dedicated to jazz artists who live in or are from New Jersey.
Cappy has released two albums as a band leader. His debut album, “Church and State,” came out in June 2017 on Ropeadope Records. His second album as a leader, “Tales of the Tape,” was issued in 2021 independently on bandcamp.com.
In 2022, Cappy played the Sunset Jazz Series at Wiggins Park in Camden. Afterward, he realized he and his band were particularly hot that night, but he did not record the performance. He made up for that mistake by recording his concert the following year at the McLaughlin-Norcross Memorial Dell in Haddon Lake Park, also in Camden.
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Cappy plans to tour for the vinyl release of his live album first, followed by a full digital experience in late November or early December.
“I’m really excited about the live album,” Cappy said.
Cappy, who has performed at the Exit Zero Jazz Festival in Cape May, first played trumpet in South Jersey accompanying the late Tony Bennett during a weekend at Caesars Atlantic City in the fall of 1993.
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While Cappy was attending the University of the Arts in Philadelphia as a sophomore, his private trumpet teacher, the late Rick Kerber, arranged for him to play the gig. Kerber was on a first-call basis with the Atlantic City casinos and performed with Frank Sinatra, Natalie Cole and Bennett.
“I caught the end of the wonderful show era,” Cappy said.
Howard Paul, the president and CEO of Benedetto Guitars, also spent time playing in Atlantic City before his professional career as a jazz artist started.
Paul’s musical career started at age 4 in Northfield with his first guitar. By high school, he lived in Linwood and worked professionally in Atlantic City. He was also a casual player in a lot of different Atlantic City casino bars during the summer when he was in college in the 1980s.
Howard Paul and the Benedetto All-Stars featuring Dave Stryker and Jocelyn Gould will perform at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Gateway Playhouse. The guitar trio will be accompanied by Hammond B3 organist Tony Monaco and drummer Byron Landham.
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Paul joined Benedetto Guitars in 2006 to establish a new independent company after the business was founded in 1968. He has been the president and CEO of Benedetto Guitars since 2014.
Benedetto Guitars fall between a fully custom guitar and the mass production of guitars by Gibson, Fender, Guild and other companies, Paul said.
“It was an opportunity. Benedetto is the best jazz guitar, and I am helping preserve the company for the next generation of players,” said Paul. “No one who is manufacturing guitars makes (as few as) 80 guitars a year. We can do about 80 guitars a year.”
Joe Donofrio is the artistic director and vice president of the South Jersey Jazz Society, the organization behind the Jazz @ the Point Festival. Donofrio, of Brigantine, has earned four Grammy certificates as a jazz music producer and six Grammy statues as a polka producer.
Board President Nick Regine came up with the idea for this year’s festival of concentrating on jazz artists who live in or are from New Jersey, Donofrio said.
“It’s rare to get artists of this caliber to come to Somers Point,” said Donofrio, 82, who added a music fan would have to travel to New York City, Philadelphia or some other bigger city to see musicians of this skill level up close. “The small venues make it intimate.”
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Vincent Jackson
Staff Writer
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