Posted on September 27, 2025 at 3:48 am

I got asked if I would come watch a run-through of a new musical because the producers were considering replacing the musical director and wondered if I would be open to taking over. The catch was that the show was going into tech in three days, in Miami of all places, and – not to cause panic, but – none of the arrangements or orchestrations were written yet. At that point in my life, I had pretty much given up on show business (this happens with me every couple of years), so I figured I’d be nice and watch the run-through and then politely tell them it wasn’t my thing.

I walked in the rehearsal room that day and was greeted by my old friend Sally Mayes, who I hadn’t realized was in the show. She patted me on the shoulder and rolled her eyes and headed off to start the performance.

The show was a dreadful mess, and the music department was indeed a catastrophe, but I did have to admit there was some really wonderful choreography performed by an exciting company of young dancers, and then… there was this one girl in the cast.

It’s hard to be good in a bad show. Even the best actors can be sunk by tin-eared dialogue, absurd situations, impossible relationships, and I’ve seen brilliant veterans give resigned, hollow-eyed performances when they can’t get around shitty writing. But sometimes something shines through, and what I saw that day was an actor who was ferociously alive, somehow deeply authentic, completely attuned to her fellow actors and also challenging them, and filling the stage with a genuine and unique joy, all while singing her ass off. I had never seen this girl before, but I knew she was my type of musical theater actor, someone who connects to every word and every note, and makes music by telling stories and vice versa. I had to work with her.

And that’s why I said yes to music directing Urban Cowboy on that day in October 2002, and why I have been making music with Jenn Colella ever since.

If you came to see us at the beautiful Capitol Center in Concord NH last weekend, then you heard some good spicy stories about our time at the Broadhurst Theater (although I think we may have only told the Naked Fight Call story backstage), and you heard Jenn sing her inimitable way through three decades’ worth of my material, and you heard the original Caucasian Rhythm Kings (along with a sensational debut by drummer Jake Robinson) play the very heart of these songs as only they can, and you witnessed one of the many magical things that came out of me saying yes to that stupid show twenty-two years ago.

Hope from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
Shiksa Goddess from The Last 5 Years (2002)
The Shed Shack from Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil (2025)
Boat from Less (2025)
The Voice of My Generation from The Connector (2024)
JENN: And I Will Follow from Songs of Jason Robert Brown (2003)
JENN & JRB: i’d Give It All For You from Songs for a New World (1995)
JENN: Mr. Hopalong Heartbreak from Urban Cowboy (2003)
It All Fades Away from Bridges of Madison County (2013)
Everybody Knows from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
JENN: Cassandra from The Connector (2024)
JENN: Someone To Fall Back On from Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes (2005)
JENN: Zohra’s Philosophy from Less (2025)
Wait Til You See What’s Next from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
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Encore: All Things In Time from How We React and How We Recover (2018)

JRB: piano, vocals
Jenn Colella: vocals
Randy Landau: bass
Gary Sieger: guitar
Jake Robinson: drums