For those unaware, celebrated trumpeter and vocalist Bria Skonberg forges new foundation with What It Means, a heartfelt and hard-grooving homage to New Orleans, releasing July 26th, 2024 via Cellar Music Group.

For critically acclaimed trumpeter and vocalist Bria Skonberg, the great joy of music has always been in sharing it – with audiences and peers on the bandstand. “I love to perform. I love to prepare songs in ways that surprise and delight listeners, adding different variables and finding commonalities. I love blasting my trumpet over a hard grooving rhythm section. I love hearing horns in harmony and singing from a whisper to a roar,” Skonberg reflects.

“It’s a cathartic, soul-satisfying experience, and all I’ve wanted to do since I first met the trumpet.” This elation was, for Skonberg and others, poignantly put on hiatus with the onset of the global pandemic in 2020.

By January 2021, Skonberg had experienced the weight of the worldwide lockdown in a profound blend of emotions. From not having seen her parents in over a year and having interacted with other musicians less than ten times since the start of the lockdown, mingled with the kaleidoscopic wonder of becoming a new parent, Skonberg at once experienced the desolation of the depths of the worldwide sense of isolation while being beautifully overwhelmed with a new kind of love.

With this experiential context, when gigs finally did begin to return, Skonberg felt “like I was trying to find a way back and a way forward at the same time.” What proved deeply grounding for Skonberg amid this tumultuous societal return to normalcy was revisiting the material she had learned in her teens – classics like Louis Armstrong’s “Cornet Chop Suey” – and immersing herself in lifelong musical favorites of her family, such as Van Morrison and The Beatles, and of her own, namely Wynton Marsalis’s septet music.

This blend of worldwide trepidatious optimism, parental beauty, and the music that stirred Skonberg’s soul from her teens through her adulthood led her to a place where she understood what her next project needed to be.

After meeting and brainstorming with long-term mentor and friend, Producer Matt Pierson, Skonberg envisioned the project that now stands as What It Means, a love letter to the music and tradition of New Orleans that first inspired her.

1. “Comes Love” (4:28) (Lew Brown, Sam Stept, Charles Tobias)
2. “Sweet Pea” (3:40) (Amos Lee)
3. “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” (4:11) (Eddie DeLange, Louis Alter)
4. “The Beat Goes On” (6:49) (Sonny Bono)
5. “In the House” (6:21) (Bria Skonberg) 6. “Cornet Chop Suey” (4:43) (Louis Armstrong)
7. “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” (5:05) (John Lennon)
8. “Days Like This” (featuring Gabrielle Cavassa) (3:20) (Van Morrison)
9. “Petite Fleur” (4:36) (Sidney Bechet)
10. “Elbow Bump” (7:03) (Bria Skonberg)
11. “Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)/A Child is Born” (4:29) (Billy Joel/Thad Jones)

On an album that oozes such an authentically felt New Orleans vibe throughout, allowing Skonberg to lean deeply into the power of meaningful and humble collaboration, the album opens on the slinky “Comes Love” and the playfully perky Amos Lee cut “Sweet Pea” and they are followed by the dulcet ballad “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?”, a rousing rendition of the Sonny Bono cut “The Beat Goes On,” and then we are graced with her first original, the lushly elgant “In the House.”

Along next is the propulsive Louis Armstrong track “Cornet Chop Suey” and her delicate version of John Lennon’s sumptuously-sculpted “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),” and they are in turn backed by the upbeat and joyful Van Morrison track “Days Like This” (featuring Gabrielle Cavassa), a gorgeous, aching yearn of a take on Sidney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur,” the album rounding out on her other original, the fervently gleaming “Elbow Bump,” closing on the Billy Joel/Thad Jones combo ballad “Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)/A Child is Born.”

The album’s title holds layers of significance, both on an individual level and in recognizing jazz history — a truncated version of one of the most famous standards about the Crescent City: “Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?” By evoking this standard, Skonberg immediately aligns the album with the history and tradition of that great musical city.

Moreover, by shortening the title to simply state What It Means, Skonberg turns it into a broader statement and call to her audience to recognize that which is important to each person. Skonberg herself addresses the topic from her perspective on the album. “I am affirming ‘what it means’ to me,” she says. “I care about family, I care about getting to make music that brings joy with other people, from a place that reveres its roots, and that looks forward to brighter days.”

www.briaskonberg.com

Bria Skonberg @ Facebook