"WHAT IT MEANS" NEW ALBUM - AVAILABLE FRIDAY JULY 26TH on Cellar Music
CLICK HERE TO PRE-SAVE AND HEAR IT FIRST
Hello Everybody,
I hope this finds you in good health and company 💛 I've enjoyed a handful of festival and teaching opportunities this summer, all leading towards the coming weeks! Can you believe it's been 5 years since I released an album? Some days go slow but the years are going faster all the time... I am overjoyed to share that on Friday July 26th my newest musical offering "What It Means" will be available on all streaming sites, CD and VINYL!!!!
Needless to say it's been a disorienting chapter where a lot has happened (nothing never happens as they say) and simultaneously I (and many/most of you) have experienced such isolation that necessitated profound patience. There were months upon months where I didn't perform or make music with anyone...
Performing is my passion. I love to prepare songs in ways that surprise and delight listeners, adding different variables and finding commonalities. I love blasting my trumpet over a hard grooving rhythm section. I love hearing horns in harmony and singing from a whisper to a roar. It’s a cathartic, soul-satisfying experience, and all I’ve wanted to do since I first met the trumpet. Missing this during the pandemic, combined with becoming a new parent, meant many moments of feeling completely untethered and unsure of who I am and "what I do."
The way I found a way forward is by finding a way back. I once again partnered with Producer extraordinaire Matt Pierson (Bria 2016, With a Twist 2017) who had the brilliant idea to go to New Orleans for this project. New Orleans jazz is the reason I fell in love with playing and we chose a mixture of songs that pay tribute to the great city, the joy of making music together, family, and optimism. My optimism was tested when we had the recording session and a great gig at Snug Harbor all lined up for November of 2022, and I found out that MORNING I was to leave that I had COVID :(:( Totally derailed the plan. Eventually we got it back on track and the album you'll hear was recorded during Mardi Gras a few months later. The beat goes on!
Keeping the beat on drums throughout is none other than the great HERLIN RILEY! He has been a long time dream collaborator and I'm thrilled. The lineup is full of established veteran and up and coming talent from New Orleans: Don Vappie on guitar, Grayson Brockamp on bass, Ben Jaffe on sousaphone, Aurora Nealand and Rex Gregory on reeds, Ethan Santos on trombone, and we have a special cameo duet with rising star Gabrielle Cavassa. I brought one piece of NYC, a wonderful pianist who I've gotten to know well over the last decade, Chris Pattishall.
Here is the track listing so you can start to imagine how it might sound:
”Comes Love”
Composers: Lew Brown, Sam Stept, Charles Tobias
“Sweet Pea”
Composers: Amos Lee
“Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans”
Composers: Eddie DeLange, Louis Alter
“The Beat Goes On”
Composers: Sonny Bono
“In the House”
Composer: Bria Skonberg
“Cornet Chop Suey”
Composers: Louis Armstrong
“Beautiful Boy”
Composers: John Lennon
“Days Like This” (featuring Gabrielle Cavassa)
Composers: Van Morrison
“Petite Fleur”
Composers: Sidney Bechet
“Elbow Bump”
Composers: Bria Skonberg
“Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)/A Child is Born”
Composers: Billy Joel/Thad Jones
I can confidently say this... it sounds like a Bria record 😂😂😂
OK GO PRE-SAVE IT NOW HERE HERE HERE HERE HEREAND COME HEAR IT LIVE AT THE SHOWS BELOW!
Thanks and love everybody!! Keep your bell up 🎺🎺Bria
WEST COAST ALBUM RELEASE JULY 21-29
July 22 Yoshi’s, Oakland, CA
July 23-24 Dimitrou’s Jazz Alley, Seattle, WA
July 26 The Sun Rose, Hollywood, CA
EAST COAST ALBUM RELEASE
September 13 Carlyle Room, Washington DC
September 14Lake Anna Jazz Fest, Mineral VA
September 19Regatta Bar Boston MA feat. Herlin Riley
September 20-22Dizzy’s NYC feat. Herlin Riley
EUROPE
November 8 La Rochelle, FR
November 9 Duc Des Lombards, Paris FR
November 14 Espace Agape, Saint-Maixent-l'Ecole, FR
November 15 La Citadelle, Le Chateau- d'Oleron FR
November 16 Salle Des Silenes, La Châtaigneraie, FR
November 18 Jazz Cafe, London UK
+ more TBA @briaskonberg.com/tour
What It Means - Bria Skonberg
Cellar Music 2024
The album's title holds layers of significance, both on an individual level and in recognizing jazz history — a truncated version of one of the most famous standards about the Crescent City: “Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?” By evoking this standard, Skonberg immediately aligns the album with the history and tradition of that great musical city. Moreover, by shortening the title to simply state What It Means, Skonberg turns it into a broader statement and call to her audience to recognize that which is important to each person. Skonberg herself addresses the topic from her perspective on the album. “I am affirming ‘what it means’ to me,” she says. “I care about family, I care about getting to make music that brings joy with other people, from a place that reveres its roots, and that looks forward to brighter days.”
Musically, What It Means is a powerhouse monument to Skonberg’s distinctive style as a writer and performer. Combining inventive arrangements of traditional jazz standards, witty amalgamations of crossover hits, and original compositions that sound like standards, Skonberg showcases her immersion in the lineage of jazz in such a way that is both historically informed and refreshing in a contemporary way. Moreover, her tasteful mastery of sonic palettes is aptly displayed throughout the album, such as the textural use of bass clarinet on her arrangement of “Petite Fleur”. An almost coy element of Skonberg’s sound that can be found in her writing on this album, particularly on “Petite Fleur”, is her use of musical ‘Easter Eggs’; that is, sly references to other elements of jazz tradition hidden within the arrangements that are to be found by the attentive listener.
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