Throwback to Digging Me Digging You

I released this record in 2012. It is a tribute to my favorite singer, Blossom Dearie. Blossom sang, played piano, wrote songs, had her own record label, and was an all around bad-ass lady. We recorded the record at Sear Sound in NYC with James Farber engineering. We recorded the main tracks for the record in one day and did the cellos and a few vocal overdubs on a second, half-day. The record features some amazing musicians: Bruce Barth on piano, Matt Aronoff on bass, Matt Wilson on drums, Jesse Lewis on guitar, Avishai Cohen on trumpet, Anat Cohen on clarinet, Jeremy Udden on alto saxophone, Jennifer Wharton on bass trombone, Josh Sinton on bari sax, James Shipp on percussion, and Yair Evnine, Rubin Kodheli, Yoed Nir, Jessie Reagan Mann and Alex Waterman on cello. Phew. They are all amazing musicians and you should check them all out. Oded Lev-Ari is the real star, he produced and arranged this record – brilliantly.

Favorite track:

It’s so hard to pick and choose…I’ll just highlight some of my favorite things…

I love the 8 cello arrangement of Figure Eight. I wanted to pay tribute to Blossom’s contribution to School House Rock and this song seemed perfect. At first when Oded suggested eight cellos, I thought he had lost his mind but once again, he was right.
The arrangement on Rhode Island is soooooo fun. We didn’t rehearse for this record and we recorded live. The horns were in the same room as most of the rhythm section and these guys nailed it.
Avishai’s solo on Down With Love.
Bruce Barth on I Like You You’re Nice. Talk about feeling safe and supported. Bruce is masterful.
All of the 5 horn arrangements are incredible. Just such a joy to sing over and these musicians really did such an amazing job.

Small world connections:

I went to school at the New England Conservatory of Music and this record has a lot of NEC alums on it! Josh Sinton, Jen Wharton, Jeremy Udden Oded and I were all there at the same time.

When I was around 12, I participated in a music competition where I sang and played saxophone. The juror wrote in the notes that I played saxophone like Paul Desmond and sang like Blossom Dearie. I hadn’t heard of either of them and I went home and checked them out. They became my favorites.

Behind the scenes:

My son, Ethan, was just 6 months old when we recorded this album. He came to visit the studio and I remember being amazed that Oded and I managed to accomplish anything, never mind putting together this album so soon after he was born.

Here is a video of the background vocals on Doodlin’ Song. I remember being so happy that these bad-ass musicians were willing to do this for me. Bruce Barth, Anat Cohen, Matt Wilson, Matt Aronoff, and Oded Lev-Ari did an awesome job! You can even here James Farber in the background saying, “They sound good!”

Listen to my versions and Blossom's versions back-to-back on Spotify