Live Music – Late Night Joe

Late Night Joe is a trio of performers on the New England jazz scene who bring a distinctive “retro” vibe to classic American popular and jazz songs. The group’s repertoire includes up-tempo swingers, medium-tempo blues, and introspective ballads from the pens of Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Erroll Garner, Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, and other masters of American music.

Joe DiVeglia, on piano and vocals, has performed both as a solo jazz artist and band member at coffee houses, restaurants, concert halls, community centers, and other venues in central Massachusetts and northeastern Connecticut. He is a proponent of the cool and mellow vocal jazz styles of the 1950s and 1960s (e.g., Mel Torme and Chet Baker), but also is a fan of blues and jazz-influenced pop music.  He is a former member of the Connecticut-based jazz ensembles Jazcatz and The Sharpe Nine.

Pete Travisano, on acoustic bass, is a veteran performer on the Central Massachusetts music scene.   He often works as a freelance musician with such jazz artists as the Lou Borelli Jazz Octet, The Black Sheep Jazz Band and as a solo artist.  He has worked over the years as a pit orchestra musician and a member of the Thayer Symphony. He has a great love of the American Song Book as well as modern and traditional jazz.

Jo-Ann Gerde, on drums performs in a variety of venues including pit orchestra work in musicals and cabarets and in community bands. Jo-Ann has played with the Thayer Symphony Orchestra, Marlborough Symphony Orchestra, and various Fitchburg State University ensembles. For more than 20 years, she was the drummer with the 17-piece Stardusters Orchestra, and now continues her love of big band music as a member of the Bedford (NH) Big Band.  Jo-Ann is one of the founding musicians in the Thousand Acre (Swamp) Jazz Band, playing traditional Dixieland music.

The name “Late Night Joe” refers to Mr. DiVeglia’s childhood habit of listening to Boston’s late night jazz radio programs into the wee hours (even on school nights) during Boston’s classic era of late-night jazz radio in the 1950s and 1960s.