Kendrick Lamar and SZA will perform at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, May 8-9.
Here is a roundup of major arts events taking place around New Jersey, through May 9.
MUSIC
• Kendrick Lamar and SZA (who grew up in Maplewood) will bring their co-headlining Grand National Tour to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, May 8-9 at 7 p.m. The tour, which began on April 19 in Minneapolis, has featured them presenting alternating mini-sets on their own, with collaborative numbers at various points in the show.
The tour — like the 2024 album by Lamar, GNX — refers to a car, the Buick Grand National Experimental that Lamar poses with on the album cover. It is a significant car for him, evocative of his musical roots. He has said: “My Pops put me on to rap. When I was born, I came home from the hospital in an ’87 Buick Regal while my Pops was bumping Big Daddy Kane. He would say, ‘This is Rakim. You get your whole style from Rakim!’ Or, ‘Go listen to Biz Markie!’ Sometimes I sit back and listen to hip-hop with him to see where my hip-hop roots come from.”
Lamar has also said, on social media, “life get real tricky. No matter where you at with it. i never pick and choose what stories to relate to. all of them is relative. like my momma say tho. different strokes for different folks. a good ol saying can snap you back into reality sometimes. but in the moment of confusion, the best thing you can do is find a gnx. make you realize the only thing that matters in life is that original paper work.”
CHARLIE GROSS
MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO
• Meshell Ndegeocello will bring her show titled “No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin” to the Peak Performances series at The Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University, May 8 at 7 p.m. No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin is also the title of Ndegeocello’s most recent album, featuring songs inspired by Baldwin’s writings, and spoken word segments by poet Staceyann Chin and writer Hilton Als.
“When I was commissioned by the arts organization Harlem Stage to create a musical tribute to Harlem’s favorite son, James Baldwin’s prophetic literature ‘The Fire Next Time’ was at the forefront of my mind,” Ndegeocello has said. “I’d been reading it a lot, carrying it around in my pocket. It became like my religious text. Baldwin speaks about things that are very familiar within the human condition, and the most revolutionary music to me — the music that changed my life — is the songs about the inner struggle, the commonality of being human.”
• Guitarist Stéphane Wrembel will present the 2025 edition of his annual Django à Gogo Music Festival and Music Camp — featuring music in the style of the great Romani-French guitarist and composer Django Reinhardt — May 6-11.
There will be workshops, classes and jam sessions at The Woodland in Maplewood; jam sessions at St James’s Gate Publick House in Maplewood; concerts at The Woodland (May 7-8 and 10) and Symphony Space in Manhattan (May 9); and a May 11 farewell party/jam/concert at Barbès in Brooklyn.
• The Garden State Arts Foundation will present The Duke Ellington Orchestra in a free concert at The PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, May 8 at 1:30 p.m. To find out how to request tickets, visit foundational.org/news-events/upcoming-events.
The orchestra is conducted by Charlie Young, a saxophonist, arranger and professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
The foundation is a nonprofit organization, founded in 1984, that presents free programs at the PNC Bank Arts Center and other venues.
DAVID SANCIOUS
• A new outdoor piano in Belmar’s Pyanoe Plaza will be dedicated to original E Street Band keyboardist David Sancious and his late mother Stelma Sancious, a teacher, May 3 at 2 p.m. Sancious will perform at the event, along with drummer Ernest “Boom” Carter (also an ex-E Street Band member) and saxophonist Tommy LaBella. The E Street Band is named for the street where the Sancious family used to live, and where the band used to occasionally rehearse.
The piano was donated by the Belmar Arts Council, in honor of Belmar’s 150th anniversary.
• New Jersey Symphony will be joined by The Windborne Music Group, a Virginia Beach-based rock ensemble, at shows titled “The Music of Led Zeppelin” at BergenPAC in Englewood, May 3 at 8 p.m.; and The State Theatre in New Brunswick, May 4 at 3 p.m.
Justin Sargent, who has appeared in “Rock of Ages” and other musicals on Broadway, will be the featured vocalist, and Brent Havens, who founded Windborne and arranged the music, will conduct the orchestra.
• In honor of the 50th anniversary of Bob Dylan’s all-star Rolling Thunder Revue tour, Rostafa has organized a “Rolling Thunder Revue: 50th Anniversary Benefit” show, featuring some 30 New Jersey and New York musicians, at Debonair Music Hall in Teaneck, May 3 at 7 p.m. Proceeds will go to The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.
• While another comeback tour is always possible, Kiss performed for allegedly the last time on its End of the Road World Tour, which came to an end in late 2023. But singer-songwriter-bassist Gene Simmons is continuing, sans makeup and elaborate costumes, with his own Gene Simmons Band, and they will perform at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, May 5 at 7:30 p.m.; and The Wellmont Theater in Montclair, May 6 at 8 p.m.
Simmons is joined in the band by guitarists Brent Woods (who has previously played with Sebastian Bach and Vince Neil) and Zach Throne (Jerry Cantrell, Corey Taylor), and drummer Brian Tichy (Whitesnake, Billy Idol, Foreigner, Ozzy Osbourne).
REMEMBER JONES
• Remember Jones will present his “Back to Back to Black” show — featuring Amy Winehouse’s 2006 album Back to Black album in its entirety, and other Winehouse songs — with a 12-piece band at The Outpost in the Burbs at Montclair’s First Congregational Church, May 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Back to Black was the second and last studio album by Winehouse, who died in 2011 at the age of 27. It was also a huge hit, propelled by her breakthrough single, “Rehab.”
Jones (né Anthony D’Amato) has been presenting “Back to Back to Black” shows occasionally since 2015.
• The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players will present the duo’s classic 1878 comic opera “H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor” — featuring a ship’s-deck set based on drawings by W.S. Gilbert himself — at The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, May 8 at 8 p.m.
THEATER
• Eboni Booth’s “Primary Trust,” which won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, will begin previews at The Berlind Theater at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, May 8, with the official opening night on May 9, and the last show on May 25. The Pulitzer judges described it as “A simple and elegantly crafted story of an emotionally damaged man who finds a new job, new friends and a new sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person’s life and enrich an entire community.”
• “Rock of Ages” opens at The Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal on May 2, and will continue through May 18. The jukebox musical, which ran on Broadway from 2009 to 2015, is about an aspiring rock musician who falls in love with an aspiring actress in 1980s Los Angeles, and features ’80s rock hits such as Starship’s “We Built This City,” Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” and Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock.”
For a chance to win two tickets, send an email to njartscontest@gmail.com by noon May 5, with the word “Rock” in the subject line. Please specify which show you would like to attend.
“Imperial Bedbug,” by Elvis Costello.
VISUAL ARTS
• Elvis Costello will show his artwork — including paintings that he calls “subversions” of his album covers — at The Wentworth Gallery at The Short Hills Mall, and meet those who make a purchase, May 3 from 6 to 8 p.m.
• The sixth annual edition of Art Fair 14C will take place in a new location, the 150 Bay St. building (a renovated warehouse) in Jersey City’s Powerhouse Arts District, May 8-11, with 22 loft-studios serving as exhibition spaces for 45 exhibitors from Jersey City and beyond.
MULTIMEDIA
• Peak Performances will present the Chicago-based collective Manual Cinema’s multimedia version of “Frankenstein” — combining a silent film with live actors, musicians, and puppetry — at The Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University, May 3 at 8 p.m.
REVIEWS
“Safe Passage in Conversation with Her Flowers: Disruption of Old Narratives: Heather Williams” at Karl and Helen Burger Gallery at Kean University, Union. (Through May 9)
“Comfort” at New Jersey Repertory Company, Long Branch. (Through May 11)
“James Prosek: At Work” at Morris Museum, Morris Township. (Through June 8)
“Tatyana Kazakova: In Spite of Our Fears” at Grover House Gallery, Caldwell. (Through June 27)
“Nanette Carter: A Question of Balance” at Montclair Art Museum. (Through July 6)
“Morven Revealed: Untold Stories From New Jersey’s Most Historic Home” at Morven Museum & Garden, Princeton. (Through March 1)
_______________________________
CONTRIBUTE TO NJARTS.NET
Since launching in September 2014, NJArts.net, a 501(c)(3) organization, has become one of the most important media outlets for the Garden State arts scene. And it has always offered its content without a subscription fee, or a paywall. Its continued existence depends on support from members of that scene, and the state’s arts lovers. Please consider making a contribution of any amount to NJArts.net via PayPal, or by sending a check made out to NJArts.net to 11 Skytop Terrace, Montclair, NJ 07043.
