Christmas Time is Here…AGAIN!

Charlie Brown: "Isn't there anyone who can tell me what Christmas is all about?"

Linus: "Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about...Lights please?"

Get into the Christmas spirit and join us for a very special evening celebrating all the music from Vince Guaraldi's classic album, "A Charlie Brown Christmas," as well as many other Guaraldi and Christmas favorites from "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" and "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

Pianist Jody Nardone cites Peanuts composer Vince Guaraldi as one of his earliest musical influences and favorite jazz artists still to this day. Jody and his trio (Brian Allen on bass, and Chris Brown on drums) will re-create and re-imagine all the songs from the animated 1965 TV special as well as other Guaraldi favorites and holiday classics.

A true labor of love, Nardone and band have done their homework. The trio's love and knowledge of Guaraldi's life and work is on full display, not just in the performance of classic tunes such as "Christmas Time Is Here" and "Linus And Lucy" but also in Nardone's stage banter and presentation of the entire program.

Jody and the trio's performance of this beloved holiday classic for adults and kids alike is always a heartwarming and festive evening guaranteed to get you in the spirit and keep you from "feeling depressed” and paying Lucy a nickel for psychiatric help.

JODY NARDONE

“Thanks to a dynamic style that can shift from the whispered beauty of Bill Evans to the percussive flights of McCoy Tyner, Nardone has emerged as one of Nashvilleʼs preeminent jazz pianists.” (Michael McCall/Nashville Scene)

Nashville-based (by way of New Jersey) pianist/vocalist/composer JODY NARDONE is that rare musician to be both a “singer's singer” and an acclaimed pianist respected enough to be a top call jazz player and improviser. “I often tell my audiences that someday I would really like to reinterpret one of my favorite albums of all time, The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans album. But what would be different about me doing it than some other very capable people on the scene is that I'd get to be both Tony & Bill at the same time.”

Nardone's performed and/or recorded with folks as diverse as Brian Setzer, Bret Michaels, Jeff Berlin, Alison Brown, Larry Carlton, Jeff Coffin, Joel Frahm, Chester Thompson, Rod McGaha, Brian Beller, The Floating Men, and currently with John Cowan and Andrea Zonn's new supergroup, The HercuLeons.

Jody Nardone's had his own trio for 20 years. "The piano, bass and drums configuration suits me best. There is just the right amount of muscle and power to really move the room as well as enough space for all three instruments to interact, leaving room for my tenor singing voice to fly above all of it.” Nardone loves to reimagine and reinterpret existing material. "My favorite thing to do is to take an old standard from the Great American Songbook and try to play it in a much more modern context, using reharmonization and other techniques from rock and pop music to pull a song from say, the 1930s into the 21st century. And vice versa, I love taking a “newer” song from the classic rock and pop era like the '60's, '70s or '80s and beyond, and reworking it almost as if it were written in the era of the Great American Songbook.

"The Jody Nardone Trio's 2019 Vince Guaraldi Tribute album, A Charlie Brown Christmas Live in Nashville: received high praise from Derrick Bang, Vince Guaraldi's official biographer: "Nardone, a veritable keyboard monster...is much more aggressive with his improvisational bridges. He favors ambitious chord structures, whereas Guaraldi leaned toward single note runs and filigrees. That distinction is key; it makes this albumʼs listening experience pleasantly familiar, but by no means slavish. Nardoneʼs improv work is playful…”

In 2004, Nardone was asked to be a part of the critically acclaimed Crimson Jazz Trio, a group devoted to creating jazz re-interpretations of the music of King Crimson, led by ex-Crimson drummer Ian Wallace and also featuring Billy Cobham sideman, Tim Landers on bass. The band was created with the blessing of Crimsonʼs Robert Fripp, who enjoyed their debut recording so much that he actually named the band and wrote the liner notes for the album. Crimson Jazz Trio made two recordings which received

many praiseworthy reviews in Downbeat and Jazz Times as well as being listed as one of the top Critic's Picks for the year 2005 in Jazziz magazine.

Jody Nardone was born into a musical family. His dad was a band leader, an incredible crooner and baker who ran the family business by day with his older brother. "It was a three generations-old Italian bakery that was started by my grandfather and great grandfather in my hometown, a small bedroom community for Wall Street workers in NJ, 35 miles away from NYC." At night and on the weekends, his dad sang with his band, The Good Times, one of the busiest wedding bands in the NJ area for 25 years from the early '70s through the mid '90s.

From the time he was a toddler, Nardone's dad's band rehearsed in their basement. When the band wasn't rehearsing at home, there were records being played constantly. The intoxicating sounds of Frank Sinatra's classic LPs, The Beatles, Eagles, Billy Joel, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett and Ray Charles, as well as large doses of 1970s rock, R&B and Soul 45s that were on repeat daily on the family stereo. His dad was also a hi fi enthusiast. "We always had high quality stereo equipment in our home and along with that came tons of records. It wasn't long before I had TWO obsessions, one was playing and singing as often as possible, the other was just sitting and listening to music for as long as I was allowed to. I still do that for HOURS and HOURS to this day. I'm an avid record collector and pride myself on having a very diverse and extensive collection of all kinds of artists and genres.”

Jody started piano lessons at age four and soon was asked to sing and later play at weddings with his dad's band, even as a small child, when the band played weddings of friends and family members. Nardone sang solo and in the choir at both school and church. His dad also had a jingle business as a side project with another band member, and Jody was asked to sing on some of their radio jingles. Soon after, he was doing other studio work as a background vocalist before he was even out of junior high school.

In 8th grade, Nardone got the bug for jazz and studied jazz piano throughout high school and was a member of the jazz ensemble at school. He also formed a rock band with a few of his high school buddies and they went on to play together for 17 years. "I was writing songs, fronting the band and playing piano. We gained a huge audience touring up and down the east coast and in NYC, released several independent recordings, and ultimately landed in Nashville in pursuit of a publishing and recording contract. The band's days are many years in the rear view mirror now, but the lessons I learned from having to entertain those large audiences each night are still with me when I play my trio shows and I carry that same spirit up onto the bandstand each night I play at any venue, jazz or otherwise.”

He continued to study piano and later voice with some of the greatest educators in the NJ and NYC area from his earliest years until adulthood. After high school, Nardone was accepted into the prestigious Jazz Studies and Performance program at William Paterson University in NJ. While at WPU, he studied with jazz legends Harold Mabern,

Rufus Reid, Norman Simmons, Hal Galper, Joe Lovano, Jim McNeely, and pianist/ clinician Kenny Werner, author of the renowned book, Effortless Mastery as well as many others.

"Ever since I was a kid, I have heard music not just in the outside world, but inside my head. I love the classics and enjoyed learning the works of the great composers but I never once thought about wanting to make a career of playing someone else's music exactly as they composed it note-for-note, without any room for variation, re imagination or improvisation. I have tremendous respect for classical musicians but I was always looking for something else, motivated by the music inside my head. When I'm playing, especially when I'm improvising, I liken it to putting the tonearm down on my turntable and the stylus picking up the music in the groove. I'm merely the amplifier or the speakers. I want to be in a constant state of receiving, so the music is playing me, rather than the other way around.”

7:30 PM / 6:00 PM Doors

Main Stage, City Winery Nashville

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