March Photos

March has already been full of many wonderful gigs so I thought I’d share some pictures!

L to R: Your truly, Najee Gabay, Mason Griffin, Sean Stephens, and Beda Spindola

First up, Sean Stephens’ Redemption of a 90s Kid at 54 Below. To say I had the perfect shirt for this show is an understatement! This set was an absolute blast to play. We opened with Reba McEntire’s “Fancy” and I haven’t been able to get this video out of my mind since I started working on this song. Absolutely epic.

L to R: Or Matias, Shoba Narayan, James Mohamdein, and Tim Basom. Photo by Rebecca J. Michelson.

Next, I got to play with literal Disney Princess Shoba Narayan at 54. Shoba is the first ever South Asian to play Jasmine in Broadway’s Aladdin. She is stunningly gorgeous and has the voice to match! My personal highlight was playing Stephen Schwartz’s “When You Believe” with Shoba and Lindsay Heather Pearce who currently stars as Elphaba in Wicked.

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Then, I got to celebrate the third anniversary of Brass Queens on International Women’s Day! Major shouts to Wandering Barman, a lovely cocktail bar here in my neighborhood, for being exceptional hosts.

I left Wandering Barman as soon as we finished playing because I had to get up at 6am to drive to PS 277 Gerritsen Beach to play with Dawn Drake’s ZapOte for the third grade class. Dawn talked about the music of the Americas and we demonstrated salsa, funk, and samba. They asked a lot of great questions and picked up on the rhythms impressively quickly! Thanks to the Brooklyn Arts Council for sponsoring this engagement.

Video: Brass Queens at Brooklyn

I played Brooklyn Bowl for the first time since 2016 last week with Brass Queens. It felt so good to be back on the stage there, a place where I’ve seen countless incredible shows, ate so much delicious fried chicken, and probably had, oh I don’t know, one or two beers over the last 10+ years (it looks like Brooklyn Blast is no longer on tap which is honestly probably for the best).

I made a little highlight real from some of the clips my wife was kind enough to shoot. I was so proud of the Brass Queens that night! Everyone brought their A-game. I’m hopeful that we’ll be invited back soon!

That's a Wrap: Season 5 of The Grinch!

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My fifth season of the Grinch has come to a close. It is such an honor to present this production across the country. I continue find such joy in this music, year after year. It was a shorter than usual tour this year, but I made the best of my time in Paducah, Charlotte, and Atlanta. Much love to my entire Grinch family. Fah who foraze!

Layoff!

Due to union regulations, the entire Grinch orchestra minus the Music Director and Associate Music Director had a two-week layoff at the end of November. The rest of the company traveled to DC for two weeks at the National Theater where they picked up local musicians, including Danny Villanueva, my friend and mentor from my University of Maryland days, who took over the drum book.

I didn’t mind at all as it meant I could travel to California to spend Thanksgiving with my wife and her family. I had a nice time in the warmer weather, but I did need to practice a lot as I am starting to sub on the new Broadway show, Six (more on that when the time comes). Special thanks to my in-laws, Alex & Alicia, for letting me set up shop in Alex’s studio so I could practice on a rental kit. Here I am with some of Alex’s record collection. There’s some good stuff in there!

After a week out west, I got back to New York and had just enough time to fit in a recording session at Power Station before hopping back on Grinch tour. It was a mini Lightning Thief reunion with Wiley Deweese (keys and MD), Yuka Tadano (bass), and Kevin Wunderlich (guitar). We recorded a new anthology for The Michael Friedman Collection with a group of fantastic singers. Here I am set up in “the Motown Room.”

Of course my favorite part of the project was that my lifelong friend Ian Kagey, Director of Operations at Power Station, was behind the board. We’ve been working together for over 20 years!

Now I am in Atlanta and about to open the last week of Grinch at the Fabulous Fox. Stay tuned for a little Grinch write-up once I’m back from tour next week.

We are definitely back

I just wrapped what was certainly my busiest week of playing since the pandemic began. If my calculations are correct, I logged 4 gigs in a week which doesn’t sound that crazy until you factor in the 19 hours of rehearsal (actual number!) that these shows required.

On Monday, I had a morning rehearsal for Prospect Theater’s Tuesday night REIGNITE concert. Before the concert, we had a 5-hour tech rehearsal where we worked out the staging for 15 different songs, each featuring a different vocalist or vocal ensemble. It was my first time playing at Symphony Space in at least ten years! I thought the drums looked great on the stage!

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On Monday and Thursday, I had rehearsals for the Selena project I’m in. We played a Dia de los Muertos party on Saturday night at what is normally a restaurant in Ditmas Park. It turned out to be a great place for a concert. We sold the place out! I didn’t take any pictures except for this blurry one with percussionist Neil Ochoa. That dude can play.

Before the Selena gig, I played a super fun Halloween gig with Brass Queens at the Zo Loft in Rockefeller Center. I thought one of the coolest parts was that I got to venture down to the loading dock that services all of RocCen to load in my drums and park my car while I was at the event. It blew my mind that I entered the loading dock at 50th street and drove a block and a half underground to get to 1 RocCen. There’s a whole world down there! Brass Queens repurposed their custom Stella McCartney jumpsuits made for the Met Gala into “Brasstronaut” suits. I LOVED IT!

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The final show of the week was Drew Gasparini’s show last night at “Broadway’s Living Room,” 54 Below. This has become the cabaret spot in NYC. The energy in that room is always electric and Drew really brought down the house. I last played with Drew in the Bahamas in February 2020 for a presentation of his coming-to-Broadway show, the Karate Kid.

The craziest part of the week, perhaps, was the rehearsal for Drew’s show, which was at Euphoria Studios, the place I was rehearing on 3/12/2020 when it became suddenly clear that the world was shutting down. On my way in I passed the Sweetgreen we ate lunch at that day and the matcha shop that we stopped at for a quick pick-me-up. Coincidentally, the bass player on Drew’s gig, Justin Goldner, was the MD for that rehearsal in March. It was all very surreal.

Again, I only took one photo last night and it was with Erica Rotstein, Drew’s manager and one of the producers from Hundred Days, who happens to be married to my lifelong friend Ian Kagey. It was great to get to catch up over a drink at the end of a very long week!

I think that’s it! Thanks for following along. Now it’s time to pack for Grinch tour which kicks off on Saturday!

Busy Weekend with Brass Queens

View from the stage in Cape May

I had so much fun this weekend playing a run of shows with Brass Queens. We had an early hit at the Exit Zero Jazz Festival in Cape May, NJ on Saturday, so we spend the night in Wildwood Friday night. Though I’ve played out of town a few times over the pandemic, this was the first overnighter I’ve done since February 2020 and it was a blast to be “on the road,” even if it was for one night.

This was my first trip to Cape May and it was quaint and wonderful and the view from the drum kit (above) was spectacular! I spent a significant amount of our set watching the waves crash behind the audience.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stay for very long as we had to return to Brooklyn to play the launch of Witch Please, a new pumpkin beer by Dyke Brewing, at the Crown Inn. I don’t usually go for pumpkin beers, but it was pretty tasty and I even bought a shirt! It was, as always, nice to play an event for the queer community.

This may surprise you, but every drummer loves free beer!

On Sunday, we got to play yet another waterfront gig, this time at The Hudson in Inwood. Somehow I’ve never heard of this restaurant, but I will be back for dinner and drinks sometime. This was a 70th birthday party and everyone was down to get down! We even had jet skiers on the river pull up behind us to listen for awhile.

On the Hudson, at The Hudson

After that, my wife and I went to a belated Sukkot dinner at our friends’ apartment in Harlem. There’s no better way to round out the weekend than with good friends, good food, and good drinks! There may have also been a trip to the ice cream shop :-)

Sukkot Squad <3

Governors Ball

I had an amazing time playing all three days of Governors Ball this weekend with Brass Queens. If you aren’t familiar, Gov Ball is an annual advertising music festival held in NYC that usually attracts late-teens and twenty somethings. Thankfully, I didn’t feel as old as I prepared myself to feel, and even though I’m not 20, I have 20 years of festival-going experience under my belt, so let’s just say I’m quite the professional!

We had a blast playing and getting the crowd pumped up. The weather was perfect and it was nice to be at Citi Field and not have to worry about the Mets blowing it in the 9th! I got to catch a bunch of artists that I otherwise would never see. Highlights for me were Megan Thee Stallion, Portugal. The Man (one of very few straight-ahead bands at the fest), and Burna Boy. The definitive musical highlight was, BY FAR, Carly Rae Jepson playing “Call Me Maybe.” Damn, that song is pretty incredible and the crowd was going nuts!

Keep an eye out on the Brass Queen’s Instagram as I’m sure we will be sharing clips from the weekend. I hope we are invited back next year!

Now Playing: Her Sound, Vol. 2

Ethan Carlson’s Her Sound, Vol. 2 was released on September 17. This follow up to Vol. 1 (here ICYMI) features many amazing singers including Alysha Umphress (On the Town, Bring It On, American Idiot), Jewelle Blackman (Hadestown), Krystina Alabado (Mean Girls) , and the homie Jo Lampert (Joan of Arc), with orchestrations by Solomon Hoffman.

I tracked this in April and it’s such a joy listening now and returning to the space these gorgeous songs take me to. Congrats to Ethan and all involved in this project and stay tuned for Vol. 3!

The Quarantined Woodwind Ensemble

I am honored to be a part of the latest arrangement from the Quarantined Woodwind Ensemble: Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles!

The Quarantined Woodwind Ensemble is a virtual ensemble with a rotating personnel comprised of NYC's top-call woodwind musicians from Broadway pit orchestras and the New York jazz scene. The group is directed by Tyler Burchfield and Emily Pecoraro, the latter of which I met through the extended Grinch family.

If you love piccolo, this is the video for you! Enjoy!

Operation Gig

At the Japanese House with Brass Queens

I had the pleasure of playing not one but TWO events presented by Operation Gig over the weekend. If you aren’t familiar with the series, Operation Gig has been presenting crowd-funded outdoor gigs to help support working musicians through the Covid era. The concerts are hosted throughout porches in Ditmas Park, one of my absolute favorite neighborhoods in all of New York City.

Amor Prohibido pre-show. Yuka Tadano on bass and Rich Stein hiding back there on percussion.

Saturday’s concert featured the triumphant return of Amor Prohibido: The Must of Selena. I fall in love with her songbook the more I play it and it is truly a joy to play with each and everyone in that group! Sunday’s concert was with Brass Queens at the famed Japanese House and it was amazing to play with those ladies after being away in California for three weeks!

It felt really good to have back to back weekend gigs after a difficult year of lockdowns and cancellations. The Ditmas Park community came out strong both days and it was a delight to share both of these projects with everybody.

Me and some absolute legends who came out to Brass Queens: Jo Lampert, Kate Freer, Barrie Lobo-McLain, and Ada Westfall.