Scott Bradlee

Scott Bradlee
Born September 19, 1981
Long Island, New York
Genres Jazz, ragtime, swing
Instruments Piano, keyboards, guitar

Scott Bradlee (born September 19, 1981)[1] is an American musician, pianist, composer, and arranger. He is known for his viral videos on YouTube.

Biography

Bradlee was born on Long Island, New York, where he first fell in love with jazz at the age of 12 after hearing George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" for the first time.[2] Bradlee became a successful performer, working in the New York jazz scene.[3] Bradlee also served as music director for an interactive, off-Broadway theater experience called Sleep No More.

In looking for creative inspiration, Bradlee began reworking popular music as an exercise. In 2009, he released "Hello My Ragtime '80s", in which he incorporated popular music from the 1980s with ragtime-style piano. After playing and experimenting on stage at his regular gig at Robert Restaurant, Bradlee released the compilation Mashups by Candlelight. He would finally begin to gain popularity with his release of A Motown Tribute to Nickelback in 2012, a collaboration with local musicians which arranged Nickelback's songs in the style of 1960s style R&B music.

In 2013, Bradlee began to work more seriously on forming Postmodern Jukebox, a rotating group of musicians producing covers of pop songs in the styles of jazz, ragtime, and swing. The group broke out onto the public radar with their doo-wop cover of the Miley Cyrus song "We Can't Stop" with a vocal group The Tee-Tones. Several artists have publicly noted their appreciation for the group's work. As the viral surge grew, Bradlee was interviewed by news outlets such as NPR[4] and also performed live on Good Morning America and Fuse.[5] The group capped off their meteoric year with a visit to Cosmopolitan Magazine's New York office for a year end review of their work and popular songs from the year.[6] Among the group's prominent guest musicians are Dave Koz, who collaborated with them in a jazz covers of "Careless Whisper" and the Game of Thrones theme music, and Niia, who joined them for a "space jazz" version of "The End of the World". Postmodern Jukebox's October 2013 collaboration with Puddles Pity Party on a cover of Lorde's "Royals" generated particularly strong interest. As of September 2014, this video remained the second most popular on Bradlee's YouTube channel with over 8.7 million hits.[7]

In 2013, Bradlee found interest from the video game industry, gaining a composer credit for 2K Games' BioShock Infinite. The soundtrack features four of the artist's stylized arrangements. He has arranged a piano cover of Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (piano and vocals), a jazzy ragtime cover of Gloria Jones' "Tainted Love" (arrangement, piano),[8] and covers of R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People" (arrangement and piano) and "After You’ve Gone" (arrangement, piano).[9][10]

In early September 2014, Bradlee uploaded a 1940s jazz interpretation of "All About That Bass", featuring Kate Davis singing solo while playing double bass; Bradlee played piano and Dave Tedeschi played drums on their version, called "All About That (Upright) Bass". The video received 8 million hits in three months.[11][12]

In 2014, Bradlee's YouTube Channel Postmodern Jukebox was listed on New Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at #42.[13]

In late 2014 to 2015, his band was to tour America and Europe.

Postmodern Jukebox

Bradlee's most notable work has been with the band he created, "Postmodern Jukebox". The band posts weekly covers of recent pop songs with jazz or other genre variations. The band has included the following members:

  • Scott Bradlee - piano, arrangements
  • Robyn Adele Anderson - vocals
  • Adam Kubota - bass
  • Allan Mednard - drums
  • Cristina Gatti - vocals
  • Ashley Stroud - vocals
  • Nick Finzer - trombone
  • Andrew Gutauskas - saxophone
  • Ben Golder-Novick - saxophone
  • Tim Kubart - tambourine
  • Puddles the Clown - vocals
  • David Wong - violin
  • Jay Ratmann - clarinet
  • Stefan Zeniuk - woodwinds
  • Joe McDonough - trombone
  • Karen Marie - vocals
  • Morgan James - vocals
  • Seth Paris - saxophone
  • Mykal Kilgore - vocals
  • Jasmin Walker - vocals
  • Michael Sailors - trumpet
  • James Hall - trombone
  • Lauren Molina - cello
  • Brandee Younger - harp
  • Ariana Savalas - vocals
  • Sean Condron - banjo
  • Ric Becker - trombone
  • Von Smith - vocals
  • Scout Ford - vocals/Tee-Tone
  • Gerard Giddens - vocals/Tee-Tone
  • Bernard Taylor - vocals/Tee-Tone
  • Jerome Cohen - vocals/Tee-Tone
  • Chip Thomas - drums
  • Dave Koz - saxophone
  • Tom Abbott - clarinet
  • Jason Prover - trumpet
  • Robert Edwards - trombone
  • Miche Braden - vocals
  • Tony DeSare - vocals
  • Sean Clapis - guitar
  • Kiah Victoria - vocals
  • Bennett Miller - bass
  • Kate Davis - vocalist & bass player
  • Dave Tedeschi – drums
  • Kate Dunphy - accordion
  • Casey Abrams - vocals & bass player & melodica
  • Haley Reinhart - vocals
  • Shoshana Bean - vocals
  • Emily West - vocals

Discography

Albums

References

  1. ↑ Scott Bradlee (2014-01-30). "well my birthday is 9/19/81- so that's a start!". Scott Bradlee's Twitter feed. Archived from the original on 2014-03-04. Retrieved 2014-08-15.
  2. ↑ Lent, Jesse. "K-Pop Crossover: Scott Bradlee And Robyn Adele Anderson Of Postmodern Jukebox On Covering Psy's 'Gentleman'". K-Pop Starz. Archived from the original on 2014-01-14. Retrieved 2014-01-16.
  3. ↑ Deming, Mark. "Jazz pianist takes pop hits and sends them through a musical time machine for fun and profit.". All Music. Archived from the original on 2014-08-15. Retrieved 2014-01-16.
  4. ↑ "A Vintage Filter on Today's Top 40". NPR. Archived from the original on 2014-02-21. Retrieved 2014-01-16.
  5. ↑ "Watch: Scott Bradlee Drops Genre-Bending Cover of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"". Fuse. Archived from the original on 2014-04-20. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  6. ↑ Ingber, David. "CONVERSATION STARTERS The Most Unbelievable 2013 Pop Music Re-Mix You'll Hear". Cosmopolitan magazine. Cosmopolitan magazine. Archived from the original on 2014-08-15. Retrieved 2014-01-16.
  7. ↑ ScottBradleeLovesYa, YouTube. Retrieved on 2014-09-25 from https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottBradleeLovesYa.
  8. ↑ Pinchefsky, Carol. "Irrational Games Makes Serious Misstep with 'BioShock: Infinite' Soundtrack Offering". Forbes magazine. Forbes magazine. Archived from the original on 2014-02-22. Retrieved 2014-01-16.
  9. ↑ Scott Bradlee at the Internet Movie Database
  10. ↑ Bradlee, Scott. "My Music in Bioshock Infinite". Postmodern Jukebox. Retrieved 2014-08-21.
  11. ↑ Min, Ariel (December 10, 2014). "YouTube crooner all about that upright bass and then some". Art Beat: PBS Newshour. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  12. ↑ Barness, Sarah (September 10, 2014). "'All About That (Upright) Bass' Gives A Jazzy Twist To A Great Message". Huff Post Entertainment. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  13. ↑ "The NMR Top 100 YouTube Channels: 50-26!". New Media Rockstars. Retrieved 6 January 2015.

External links