Joe Elefante

Joe Elefante has traveled 4 continents as a pianist, saxophonist, vocalist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He has musically directed, conducted or played countless musical theater productions, including several at the Paper Mill Playhouse and Jersey Boys on Broadway and National Tour.

Joe founded the Joe Elefante Big Band in 2001, which was the house band at Cecil’s Jazz Club for three years, and was featured on ABC’s Nightline and in The Wall Street Journal. He was named a Jazz Ambassador by the Kennedy Center, and has toured Eastern Europe and the Middle East as a jazz pianist for the U.S. State Department. He has also been selected to the prestigious BMI Jazz Composers Workshop in New York City and the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Joe has composed and/or arranged over 80 compositions for large jazz ensemble, over 20 compositions for chorus, “Intermezzo” for full orchestra, “Concert for Band” for wind ensemble, a piano sonata, “Io Mio Rivolgo Indientro,” for voice and piano based on a text by Petrarch, “Consenso a i Tre,” for clarinet, cello, and piano, “Ozone” for clarinet, tenor saxophone, violin, cello, piano, and percussion, “Bone Poem” for trombone choir, and “Twentieth-Century Funk” for Saxophone Quartet. He has also completed three works based on the poems of Edgar Allan Poe: “Song” for SATB choir and piano, “Alone” for SATB choir and string orchestra, and “Evening Star” for SATB choir, wind quintet, piano, bass and percussion.

Currently, Joe is a freelance composer/arranger/ performer, is very active as a clinician, and teaches music for the Berkeley Heights Public Schools in New Jersey.