Joe Rizzolo
BLOOMFIELD — An afternoon of live jazz by the Joe Rizzolo Group with vocalist, Bahati Best, in Bloomfield’s iconic Sanctuary on the Green, is planned for Sunday, Sept. 28.
The concert will be coupled with a photography exhibit showcasing the work of two acclaimed Bloomfield photographers John S. Masi and Moira Pernambuco.
The event is being presented by the Sanctuary on the Green Alliance, a secular not-for-profit organization working alongside the Bloomfield Presbyterian Church on the Green to restore the historic Sanctuary and promote its use as a center for arts, culture and community.
The concert will benefit the Joint Capital Campaign currently underway for necessary restoration and upgrades at the church. The suggested donation for the concert is $15 per person. It is free for children under age 12. Purchase tickets at the door.
The Joe Rizzolo Group is a New Jersey–based jazz ensemble led by guitarist and composer Joe Rizzolo. With singer Bahati Best, the group blends classic jazz tradition with fresh, contemporary energy, bringing warmth, sophistication, and swing to the stage and captivating audiences with both artistry and groove.
Masi is a Newark-born photographer now living in Bloomfield whose creative career spans 35 years, capturing everyday life with an eye for vintage signage and iconic New Jersey imagery. A graduate of the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, he has had his work featured in exhibits like Newark, A Day in the City (sponsored by Kodak), showcased in solo shows across New York and New Jersey, and included in both corporate and private collections.
Bloomfield resident Moira Pernambuco is a Guyanese-born, Afro-Indigenous photographer of African and Wapishana heritage whose work includes environmental, street, and studio portraiture in New York and New Jersey.
Her critically acclaimed series, “A Tribute to the Ancestors of the Middle Passage” and “Black Boy Beautiful, Black Boy Vulnerable,” explore themes of memory, resilience, identity, and the spiritual lineage of Afro-Indigenous communities.
Her work has been exhibited in such places as the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Yale University Art Gallery and the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
The Sanctuary on the Green dates to 1797. It is built of local Belleville brownstone and conforms to the popular Wren-Gibbs model used in most early American churches. It houses turn-of-the-century stained glass windows of opalescent and American Cathedral glass, as well as mouth blown antique glass painted in the traditional Trace and Matte technique.
It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and is one of three buildings on the church campus to be included in the Historic American Buildings Survey of the Library of Congress of the 1930s.
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