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Drew Nugent

Drew Nugent is a jazz musician, hailing from the city of Philadelphia, and bandleader of the group "Drew Nugent & the Midnight Society". Nugent, as well as his ensemble, specializes in playing traditional or "Hot" Jazz, from the 1900s to the 1940s, with the main area of focus being the Jazz Age - the Roaring 20s. His main instruments of choice are the piano, trumpet and vocals. He is also known for his playing of an odd contraption called the"Hot Tea-Kettle", or the "Teapot Trumpet" as some fans have named it. Drew made his debut in 2005, at age 19, on the classic NPR radio show "A Prairie Home Companion", where he placed 3rd on the "Talent from 12-20 Contest". As far as the band goes, the Midnight Society has been together playing the good ol' tunes for a little over a decade now, and have earned a reputation as being one of the best bands in the style.

Every sub-genre of this style of music is represented, such as New Orleans, Chicago, Harlem, Kansas City, and their native Philadelphia. In the business for well over a decade now, Nugent (no relation) has been influenced by a plethora of long lost Jazz and popular music icons from the likes of the well known Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Bing Crosby, Bix Beiderbecke, Marylou Williams to ones who have long since been given their dues like Jack Purvis, Bennie Moten, Willie "the Lion Smith", Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, and Lil Hardin among many others including the likes of South Philly boys Eddie Lang & Joe Venuti, Unlike many who find it necessary to copy old recorded performances, painstakingly trying to recapture , note for note, legendary solos, Drew goes about his performances in an "authentist" sort of mind set as he calls it. Rather than replicate what has already been done, he leads the performance in a timeless recreation that makes one feel transported to another era, hearing an authentic portrayal of the style without the purists' take on it. "It's about incorporating what you have learned from each recording you've obsessed over or just merely listened to for years and picked up nuances and colors from it, then making your own interpretation on the piece", Nugent says. "Essentially it's just jazz !! The art of balancing the ratio of improvisation and structure of melody."

Drew and his band have played in many venues such as the Kimmel Center, the Hearst Castle, The Trocadero, Undergound Arts, The Union League of Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Club, the Moshulu, the Orpheus Club, TIME, Heritage, Franky Ann's (formerly Rembrandt's) , Vesper, L'Etage, the Saloon, Infusion Lounge, The Farmers' Cabinet (RIP), RUBA Club, Sedition, The Pineville Fishtown, Hopscotch22, SwingKat Entertainment, 2300 Arena, the SS Delta Queen & SS Mississippi Queen, Hotel Bethlehem, Kessler Theatre TX, The Bookstore Speakeasy, Hummingbird to Mars, The Race of Gentlemen, Jazz Age Lawn Party NYC, Sleep No More, Shanghai Mermaid, Danes of Vice, Wit's End, Glen Foerd Estate, Eastern State Penitentiary , Fort Mifflin, Cleveland Botanical Gardens, Mutter Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Delaware Museum of Art, Chris' Jazz Cafe, Glen Echo Park, the list goes on and on.

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Interview

Drew Nugent And The Midnight Society Performs At Paris Bistro & Jazz Café

Drew Nugent And The Midnight Society Performs At Paris Bistro & Jazz Café

Source: Wendy Wolf

For Drew Nugent and the Midnight Society, playing a gig isn’t just about music. It’s about taking a step back in time. Led by pianist, trumpeter and vocalist Drew Nugent, his ensemble recreates the music of a bygone era—playing what has been coined HOT Jazz—which was popularized from 1897 to 1935. “In essence, it’s jazz in its original form,” says Nugent, “the original American pop music.” But the band does it in its own eclectic way. The tunes, the clothes ...

"It isn't often that I meet a young musician who is three things at once: a great musician, a great entertainer, and a great scholar of the music. He's an exceptionally talented player - a virtuoso in fact (on trumpet and piano), a man who really knows how to please a crowd with his singing and a rather amazing stunt of playing a teapot (as if were some kind of small brass horn), and as a student of the music, he is one of the very few individuals I have ever met, in any profession or from any age group, who knows more songs from the 1920s than I do. Every time I hear Drew, I hear something I've never heard before. All around, he's a powerhouse of a package and I go to see him perform in New York every chance I get."- Will Friedwald (Will Friedwald writes about jazz and nightlife for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

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Primary Instrument

Multi-instrumentalist

Location

Philadelphia

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