BS UPDATE: SUMMERTIME NEWS 2019

Hi Everyone!

It's officially here, the best season of the year! My first few days of summer were spent in Aspen at their wonderful June jazz festival; the band sounded just marvelous and we saw many friends. It's a real challenge playing and singing at 8000 feet...but they gave us an oxygen tank in the green room! The trip back was another adventure as google maps routed us on the scenic route that put us 10 000 feet on a mountain top in a snow blizzard. We decided we wanted to live another day so we turned around, creeped down the mountain, missed the flight, played stand by roulette and now I'm the last one waiting to board a night flight back East just in time to meet the gang again and fly upstate for the Rochester Jazz Festival. Yesterday I was sitting next to blues icon Taj Mahal on a panel and even he said "you pay me to get there, the music is free". He's 77 so I've got no grounds to complain; ultimately these situations are puzzles and there is always a solution.

June has been a month of sooooo many projects.. My group completed the 3rd chapter of Jazz for Young People shows focusing on the Civil Rights era, Sisterhood of Swing played a battle of the bands on a battleship (I'm pretty sure we won) I visited the University of Dayton for 48 funtastical hours of workshops and concert, I absolutely loved performing with the incredible Stephane Wrembel (Midnight in Paris) for 2 nights of "Django New Orleans" at Joe's Pub, had a blast launching a "Hot Jazz Age Frolic" in Caramoor NY alongside Vince Giordano's Nighthawks as well as performing at the Burlington Jazz Fest in Vermont. Do you know the song Moonlight in Vermont? It's one of my favourites because if you look closely the verses are all haikus. Pretty cool, pretty cool. Here are some pics from those shows:

So now what... The puzzle of getting my new music out has come together - I've decided to self release and am aiming to get it out by the Monterey Jazz Festival in September. Here's a question for you all - since CDs are becoming more obsolete, what sort of souvenirs would you be interested in taking home with you after a show? T-shirts, pins, plungers, vinyl... I'd love to hear your out-of-the-box ideas. I have an artistic collaboration in the works that I don't want to divulge yet but I think it'll be really special.

Coming up next - Rochester tomorrow, a Sisterhood of Swing super combo reprises last year's Midsummer's Night Swing success July 3rd featuring CATHERINE RUSSELL (!!) Then I'm going to take a little performance break (i.e. plan shows, practice and film music videos) before a West coast run where the band hits Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and more before one of my absolute favorite weeks of the year, the Teagarden Sacramento Jazz Camp :D

Thank you very much for reading and hanging out with me, and now I have to go catch a plane! Hope to see you soon :)

Bria

June 24 Rochester Jazz Festival

June 26 Birdland w/ David Ostwald's Louis Armstrong Eternity Band

June 27 Coral Gables FL

July 3 Lincoln Center's Midsummer's Night Swing Sisterhood of Swing 7 + Cat Russell

July 19 Chatham NY

July 20 Des Moines, Iowa

July 23 Hollywood, CA

July 24 Sacramento Co-op, CA

July 25-26 SF Jazz, San Francisco CA

July 27 Columbia College, Sonora CA