Posted on January 30, 2025 at 9:34 pm

When I did the first concert in my SubCulture residency in December 2014, I knew I was starting a new phase in my musical life, but I didn’t realize that I was actually closing a chapter as well. That night was the last time that Anika Noni Rose and I performed together for ten years.

Before that concert, Anika and I had performed our show at Birdland in New York, at the Garrick Theater in London’s West End, at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica CA, and for three nights at the Abrons Arts Center on the Lower East Side which were filmed and ultimately broadcast on PBS as Jason Robert Brown In Concert with Anika Noni Rose. (The video of that concert is still available for download for a limited time from Vimeo, and the soundtrack is available wherever you listen to such things these days. I’m also happy to send you the CD/DVD set – very handsomely designed – if anyone prefers the hard copies.)

But by the time of that SubCulture concert, I had relocated to New York, Anika was still based in LA, and it just got too hard to coordinate our schedules to do concerts. We’d had an amazing time and neither of us wanted to stop performing together, but life got in the way, and suddenly ten years had gone by.

And then! The wonderful folks at the Samueli Theater asked me to come back after my shows with Mykal Kilgore in 2023, and I crossed my fingers that this might be the opportunity I’d been waiting for to reconnect with Anika and share some music together. Lo and behold, she was available, and those winter nights in Costa Mesa – sixty miles south of the horrific fires in Los Angeles – were the site of a magnificent and much-needed reunion.

In addition to some of the material we did a decade ago, Anika also learned two new pieces – “You Don’t Know This Man” from Parade, which she performed with riveting authority and deep emotional engagement, and “Zohra’s Philosophy,” from Less, the kind of song which is not only perfect for Anika’s voice but also a delight to hear coming out of a Disney princess.

Trying to fit in something from The Connector, I somehow convinced the band to play “Voice of My Generation,” unquestionably one of my more intimidating pieces, but these LA musicians breezed through it and were a sensational foundation throughout the entire concert.

One new thing that I might keep doing: The ad copy for the concert said “Songs and stories,” which was odd since “stories” haven’t really been part of my shtick, but I decided to fulfill the ad’s promise and share my history with Stephen Sondheim, a long and winding tale that came to a wonderful climax with our 2019 concert together at Town Hall. Maybe I’m at the age where I’m supposed to start recounting my tales of Life In The Biz. I certainly enjoyed sharing my memories of Steve and his extraordinary influence on my life and work.

Huge thanks to Elena Monroe for the photos!

Hope from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
Shiksa Goddess from The Last Five Years (2002)
Boat from Less (2025)
Voice of My Generation from The Connector (2024)
ANIKA: I Can Do Better Than That from The Last Five Years (2002)
ANIKA: Stars and the Moon from Songs for a New World (1995)
ANIKA: Zohra’s Philosophy from Less (2025)
Everybody Knows from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
It All Fades Away from The Bridges of Madison County (2013)
The Shed Shack from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (2025)
ANIKA: Still Hurting from The Last Five Years (2002)
ANIKA: You Don’t Know This Man from Parade (1999)
ANIKA & JRB: I’d Give It All For You from Songs for a New World (1995)
ANIKA: All Things In Time from In Concert with Special Guest Anika Noni Rose (2015)
Wait Til You See What’s Next from How We React and How We Recover (2018)

JRB: piano and vocals
Anika Noni Rose: vocals
Jamie Eblen: drums and percussion
Dan Lutz: electric and upright bass
Linda Taylor: electric and acoustic guitars