Jason Robert Brown

I’m a huge fan of Shawn Colvin, she’s an amazing singer, distinctive and exquisitely musical down to every inhale, and she’s a monster guitar player with the best right hand on the circuit, not to mention that she’s a fantastic writer. I’ve never met her, but I’ve always hoped that if I mentioned her in enough interviews, I’d one day get a phone call from a number in Austin TX and a voice would say, “Hey man, want to collaborate on an album?” SINCE THAT HASN’T HAPPENED, I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. Ms. Colvin has beenRead More »

Monday night, April 27, at 8 PM EST, I’m proud to host the first online show of the JRB SubCulture Residency, featuring maybe the two greatest singers on the planet Earth: my muse and inspiration, Ms. SHOSHANA BEAN, and my tiny Grammy-winning genius, Ms. ARIANA GRANDE. We’ve put together a really special show for you, including not just those two amazing singers but also my incredible band, who have been recording tracks in their basements, closets and bathrooms, and my beautiful family, who have been roped in to sing a number as well as being cajoled to do various cinematographicRead More »

Quarantine does strange things to people. In this case, it compelled my old college buddy Mike Titlebaum (now the Director of Jazz Studies at Ithaca College) to reach out to me and ask if I wanted to do a social-isolation collaboration. Almost immediately, I thought of this song, and then improvised this totally arbitrary and cruel arrangement for Mike to figure out, which he did, with all his usual brilliance and sangfroid. Then Mike took it one step further and made this insane video, which includes, among other inexplicable things, terrifying footage of our band in college, the Eastman ChamberRead More »

I have a friend who lives in Beijing, and by the time of the TADA! gala, he and his family had already been in lockdown for over a month. I remember not being able to imagine what that was like. I can imagine it now. But in the days after the gala, things in the US had started to intensify. In particular, there was a cluster of coronavirus cases in a nursing home in Seattle that seemed to foretell something very scary, but it was hard to know if it was just a blip or the first rumblings of anRead More »

Back in those long ago days when we could all still get together and make music and celebrate, Georgia and I were honored by our favorite youth theater company, TADA!, with a gala at Tribeca 360, featuring some of our favorite singers, some of our favorite musicians, some of our favorite songs, and both of our favorite daughters. This is the 35th year that TADA! has been creating original musicals performed by tri-state area kids, as well as providing high-level arts education and, most importantly, building community among the members, giving pre-teens and teens a sense of discipline, accomplishment, andRead More »