Off “Dream in the Blue,” set for Aug. 5 release
After years of steady collaboration, Sara Gazarek and Josh Nelson will debut as a vocal-piano duo with their upcoming album Dream in the Blue, set for an Aug. 5 release and funded exclusively through the crowd-sourcing website pledgemusic.com.
Since 2002, Gazarek and Nelson have nurtured a strong musical bond, with Nelson playing as a band member on all four of Gazarek’s albums and Gazarek singing on two of Nelson’s own recording projects. But over the past 18 months, the Los Angeles pair have taken their collaboration to a new level, touring exclusively as a duo.
“I remember feeling so incredibly comfortable with Josh that I held on tight and never looked back,” said Gazarek, in a press release, recalling their very first gig in L.A. “We’ve spent the last decade and more writing together, arranging, recording, making silly videos; essentially growing up together, personally and musically.” Nelson, in addition to citing his close rapport with Gazarek, sees Dream in the Blue as “a nice snapshot of our musical tastes in general—decidedly welcoming and accessible for a wide variety of audiences.”
Largely derived from the duo’s earnest reflection on both their individual experiences,Dream in the Blue confronts both light and dark aspects of human nature, which is captured vividly by veteran producer and engineer Al Schmitt, who has worked with such legends as Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan.
JazzTimes is proud to premiere the video of “Blackbird,” a medley off the new album that joins the Beatles’ “Blackbird” with the standard “Bye Bye Blackbird”—an arrangement that first appeared on Gazarek’s debut album Yours. “Blackbird is one of our signature arrangements,” Gazarek stated in a press release, “and when Josh plays his piano intro at the top, fans immediately recognize it, so it made sense to revisit and celebrate it, and highlight how it’s grown over the years.”