Joe Elefante is a multitalented keyboardist, saxophonist, vocalist, composer, arranger, and educator. His 17-piece big band, Joe Elefante and the SugarBand, has been working steadily, developing a varied book and style all it’s own. The band has been featured on ABC's Nightline, The Fine Living Network, BigBandJazz.Com, and AllAboutJazz.Com, and in The Wall Street Journal, The Star Ledger, and Jazz Improv magazine. Joe’s compositions for the band sometimes defy classification, falling somewhere along the lines of “Big Band Pop.” Joe's first release, Vanity Fair, is a collection of ten original compositions. Although the album is still grounded firmly in its jazz heritage, one can’t help but hear varied influences on the track “I Cry,” which features the composer on vocals and Fender Rhodes.

Born in Summit, NJ in 1978, Elefante began playing piano at the age of six, and saxophone at the age of nine. At thirteen he began his jazz studies with Andy Fusco and Walt Weiskopf. His professional career started at the age of sixteen, working clubs and restaurants, where he amassed a vast knowledge of the repertoire and history of American popular music. Joe went on to attend New York University as a jazz piano and saxophone major, working with Ralph Lalama, Frank Kimbrough and Don Friedman. Joe then transferred his studies to New Jersey City University, taking private instruction with Walt and Joel Weiskopf. While at NJCU, Elefante also studied composition and arranging with Charles Griffin and Pete McGuiness.

Joe’s career to date has had many different folds. At only nineteen years old, he was musical director for a professional production of Me and My Girl at the Williams Center for the Arts in Rutherford, NJ. At age eighteen, he composed and recorded a full-length musical, A Paris Affair, and has since written compositions for big band, small groups, pop/rock bands, and chamber ensembles. His big band arrangement of “You’re My Everything” was recorded by the New Jersey City University Jazz Ensemble on their release Wrappin’ It Up. Renowned jazz vocalist Jon Hendricks commissioned Joe to create big band arrangement of “New Rhumba,” and vocalist Rosanna Vitro commissioned two orchestral arrangements for a concert with the Mirabur Philharmonic in Slovenia.

In 2001, Joe was accepted to the prestigious Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program at the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, DC.  Later that year, he was accepted to the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop in New York City. In 2004 Joe was named a Jazz Ambassador by the Kennedy Center and the U.S. State Dept and toured the Baltic states in Eastern Europe.  As a performer, Joe has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Joe has been musical director, conductor or keyboardist for Jersey Boys at the August Wilson Theater on Broadway, the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ, Plays in the Park in Edison, NJ, and dozens of other theaters and schools.  He has been on the faculty of the Paper Mill's Summer Conservatory, the NJPAC Jazz for Teens program, and Centenary College's Young Performer's Workshop.

Currently, Joe is the Assistant Conductor and keyboardist for the Jersey Boys First National Tour.