Silver Starlite to come to Jefferson for final gazebo concert

JEFFERSON-The "big band" sound and ice cream will combine for the last Jefferson Township Gazebo concert of the season. The Silver Starlite Orchestra has been performing for weddings, dances and community events for more than 20 years and it will give a free concert from 4-6 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 8. The Jefferson Township Gazebo will host the event. The gazebo is located at the Municipal Building Complex at 1033 Weldon Road, Oak Ridge, Jefferson Township. The Jefferson Dairy (located on Rt. 15 South in Lake Hopatcong) will also be on site at this summer swing concert offering ice cream for sale. The Silver Starlite Orchestra is a 19-piece big band featuring two vocalists and has kept to the authentic "Big Band formula" with a combination of instrumentation and many original charts. The band features many of the area's top musicians, who have played with such headliners as Bob Hope, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Ray Noble, Lionel Hampton and many others. The band is based in Caldwell and tours the entire New York City Metroplex area. Dot Cacchio (Director, alto sax, clarinet, flute) is SSO's founder and director. During her tenure as Assistant Professor of Music at Caldwell College, Cacchio formed a large jazz ensemble, which since 1980 has been called the Silver Starlite Orchestra. As a performer, she has been a member of numerous theatre orchestras, community bands and jazz groups in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania area and currently plays alto in the small band Blue Skies. John Koch, a resident of Jefferson Township, grew up in drum and bugle corps. An engineer by day, he has played in many rock bands, wedding bands, and jazz bands and was past director of the AT&T Big Band/Choir Band and played in the AT&T Symphony Orchestra, featured on PBS Live at Bell Laboratories. Koch currently plays with the Dixietime Dixie-land Band, Blue Skies, Jefferson Community Band, Lucent Technologies Big Band, Weldery Marching Band and the Garfield Cadets Alumni Drum & Bugle Corps. Vocalist Nancy Koch, John's wife, hasn't stopped singing since she was five. She sang her way through school in choirs, Up With People and Pax Amicus "variety" shows. While raising a family, she was involved with children's music ministry in her parish and later played synthesizer and sang with her husband's wedding band. She has been singing with Silver Starlite for the past eight years. Vocalist Steve Veikley played trumpet and was a vocalist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Lester Lanin Orchestra, and the House Orchestra at Claridge in Atlantic City. In Boston and New York City clubs, he has played for Della Reese, Milton Berle, Vic Damone, Myron Cohen, Fernando Lamas and others. He's been with Silver Starlite for the past seven years. In case of inclement weather, the performance will be moved into the Jefferson Township Municipal Building located in the same complex on Weldon Road. Call Deborah Smead at 973-697-1946 for directions.