
Summer 2025 Dates & Registration
DATES: July 21 – 25
TIME: 4:30pm – 6:00pm
REQUIREMENTS: Middle and high school students with at least 2 years experience
PRICE: $200
LOCATION: Elefante Music – 1790 Springfield Ave, New Providence NJ
PERFORMANCE: Friday, July 25th | 7:00pm | Lantern Hill (outdoor concert)
In Elefante’s prestigious New Jersey Jazz Academy, students are fully immersed in a jazz-centered experience with these focal points:
- Read jazz rhythmic figures
- Learn how to improvise
- Learn jazz history
- Learn from and play alongside a variety of professional musicians, educators, and students of Kean University
- Gain more competitive skills and techniques to bring to their school, regional, state and national band auditions and performances.
We invite middle and high school students with at least 2 years of playing experience on any of the following instruments: alto, tenor, or baritone saxophone; trumpet, trombone, piano, guitar, bass, drum set/percussion, flute/piccolo, vibraphone and xylophone; and vocals.
The New Jersey Jazz Academy is directed by Grammy-nominated educator Vinnie Turturiello. Students will play alongside other professionals and students from Kean.
Stream the Dec 19, 2024 concert
Dec 2024 Concert at Kean
Meet the Instructors

Vinnie Turturiello is a Grammy-nominated music educator. His Scotch Plains-Fanwood jazz band, The Moonglowers, has taken top honors in the NJ Association for Jazz Education’s Division II competition in 2014, 2015, and 2016. He is an adjunct professor at Kean University and Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

Al Elefante, founder of Elefante Music, studied at Kings College and the Manhattan School of Music. He studied clarinet with Charles Passhaus, Charles Russo, and Leon Russianoff.
He is a fixture of the local jazz community and performs regularly with his band Elefante & Green.
He opened Elefante Music in 1996 where he continues to teach private lessons in New Providence.
Summer 2020 Virtual Project:
Jump, Jive, & Wail
Fall 2020 Virtual Project:
Flip, Flop, & Fly
More Jazz Academy Videos
Kean University Performance
Promo Video