Master multi-instrumentalist David Bromberg (above) brings his Big Band AND special guests to a belated-birthday concert at the Count tomorrow night…while Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox (below) maintain the retro-rocking groove on Wednesday.
It’s become something of an annual must-see appointment for music-mad fans on the greater Red Bank Green — or it might have been, had it not skipped a year in 2015. But when Grammy-lauded multi-instrumentalist and musicologist David Bromberg returns with his 12-piece Big Band to the Count Basie Theatre tomorrow night, October 4, he’ll be making up for hurt feelings and lost time with a special Big Band Bucket List Birthday Bash that finds the well-mannered virtuoso and good-humored entertainer (who turned 71 this past September 19) joined for the occasion by some folkie friends who are headline-worthy performers in their own right.
Veterans Tom Rush and the power couple team of Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams are slated to be present and accounted for at Tuesday’s 8 p.m. program, as Bromberg and company purvey the sort of genre-trampling, turn-on-a-dime eclecticism (“no set lists…it’s better that way”) that’s served him well from his celebrated albums of the early 1970s, through to his most recent release Only Slightly Mad. It’s a “bull in a used record shop” approach that folds in everything from bluegrass, country blues and coffeehouse folk, to Irish fiddle tunes, English drinking songs, West Texas swing and countless left-field surprises. Reserve tickets ($20 – $69) right here — and flip the record over for more retro-rhythm madness.
Back for an encore Basie appearance on Wednesday, October 5, Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox represent that rare act who applied a distinctly millennial method of attaining pop stardom — namely, the viral YouTube video — to a sound that’s rooted squarely in the ragtime, swing and Songbook jazz forms of way-yesteryear. Bandleader-pianist-arranger Bradlee and his 11-piece ensemble display a level of musical talent that transcends novelty, even when those prodigious chops are being applied to a formula that recasts pop hits of the present in the styles of the past (Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” arranged for doo-wop harmonies; Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” a la “grandpa-style” jazz) — all put forth with a sensibility that bases its look in Speakeasy-era sartorial splendor; its showmanship in the cross-pollinating glory days of the great TV variety shows, and its madness in a method that aims to reach across the cultural generation gulf. Take it here for tickets to the 8 pm show ($39.50 – $105) — and here for details on special Silver ($125) and Gold ($205) VIP Packages.
