BRAD SCHRADER

LATE NIGHTS WITH BRAD SCHRADER

Independent label

Brad Schrader, vocals; Jerry Vezza, piano; Alex Claffy, bass; Khary Abdul-Shahid, drums; Andrew Van Tassell, saxophone.

Brad Schrader has been interpreting the American songbook for twenty-five years, working in private clubs and cabarets from New York City to Miami Beach. This album will whisk you away to the days of piano bars and intimate jazz settings, where people sip cocktails and enjoy a vocalist singing their favorite songs.

Although Schrader does not list his band on his album cover, they are certainly excellent and noteworthy.  Jerry Vezza is his pianist and his musical director.  His sensitivity to Schrader is highly evident on their creative arrangement of “I Wish I Knew” (a favorite tune of mine sung by the wonderful Little Jimmy Scott). On this tune, they employ unexpected key changes. Vezza is very supportive of Brad Schrader during these creative key changes. The saxophone solos of Andrew Van Tassell supply improvised beauty to the project.

Khary Abdul-Shahid on drums sets the tempo and the ‘swing’ on “It’s All Right With Me.”  Brad Schrader enters, featuring his voice singing and swinging comfortably atop the drums.

Alex Claffy, on upright bass, strongly supports the rhythm section and Shrader on the Richard Rogers tune, “It Never Entered My Mind.”  Claffy also opens the familiar “You Do Something to me” walking his bass at a furious pace with Schrader comfortably swinging the tune vocally.

This is a cabaret recording, offered with sincerity and emotion from a singer who may not be as technically smooth as Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett, but he knows how to sell the songs.

Schrader is a midwestern talent, raised in Cleveland Ohio, who also lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He sings “Corcavado” in Portuguese. Schrader worked five years in Munich, Germany and also speaks German.  When he’s not recording, traveling or performing, he enjoys sailboat racing, cycling and hiking.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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