Jason Robert Brown

Marty Hughley’s article here. A really fantastic photo gallery is here. Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown and Beaverton High grad turned Broadway star Shoshana Bean come to Portland By Marty Hughley, The Oregonian January 27, 2012 Arts and education walk hand in hand in many ways. Sometimes it’s a serendipitous stroll. Take, for example, the string of connections that led to a Saturday night concert in Portland featuring Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown and Beaverton High grad turned Broadway star Shoshana Bean. It started with the small Portland theater company Staged! and its plans to produce “13,” an engaging BrownRead More »

As good as you think Shoshana Bean is, you haven’t heard anything until you hear her in her hometown. Every time we get to sing together is a privilege, and we’ll be doing it again at the end of February in Fort Worth (click here for details!). Thanks to Chanda Hall and all the folks at Staged! PDX for bringing us to Portland and getting a fantastic audience to the First Congregational Church. Can’t wait to go back again! All Things In Time (Shoshana Bean) I Could Be In Love With Someone Like You Long Long Road And I WillRead More »

There’s a fun tradition in gospel music of taking secular love songs and, with the smallest changes in the lyric – a pronoun here, a reversal of direction there – turning them into love songs to God. It was in that spirit that I decided to revisit the 1978 Grammy Award winner for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The only bumpy lyric was “Don’t change the color of your hair.” In my opinion, the original recording is Phil Ramone’s finest five minutes as a record producer. The groove, the choice of instruments (including Richard Tee’s gorgeousRead More »

The second track on The Stranger is the title track, a song that on the original album bounces in turn from smoky film noir jazz to Steely Dan-style rock to tropical disco and back again over the course of five minutes and fifty-one seconds (with the best drumming and bass playing on the whole album). As soon as I finished “Movin’ Out,” I started worrying about how to pull this next song together. The biggest issue was the “Stranger Theme” that bookends the song. I didn’t want to keep the two musical ideas separate as Billy had on the original,Read More »