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Natalie Cressman
Possessing a voice as cool and crystalline as an Alpine stream, Natalie Cressman is a rising singer/songwriter and trombonist who draws inspiration from a vast array of deep and powerful musical currents. She is releasing her 5th album in April 2019, this time in collaboration with Brazilian composer, guitarist and vocalist Ian Faquini. Drawing from impressionism, jazz, and the great Brazilian songwriting tradition, Setting Rays of Summer is a ten-track collection of original material featuring compositions in three different languages: Portuguese, English and French. With the warm instrumentation of acoustic guitar and trombone alongside two-part vocal harmonies hugging the Brazilian-accented Portuguese, Cressman & Faquini weave their musical voices together to create a fully orchestrated sound befitting a much larger ensemble.
Steadily evolving in many directions, the 27-year-old Cressman has already put down deep roots in several overlapping scenes. A prodigiously talented New York City-based trombonist, she’s spent the past nine years touring the jam band circuit as a horn player and vocalist with Phish's Trey Anastasio. Deeply versed in Latin jazz, post-bop, pop, and Brazilian music, she tapped the interlaced traditions on her first two solo albums, 2012’s Unfolding and 2014’s Turn the Sea.
She released The Traces EP in 2017, revealing her latest evolution, as she expands her creative reach into post-production with meticulously crafted soundscaped tracks inspired by R&B singer/songwriter Emily King, the Prince-championed vocal trio KING, and particularly Australian avant-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote. The Traces EP follows on the heels of 2016’s Etchings in Amber, a gorgeous duo album with guitarist Mike Bono that introduced Cressman as a formidable musical force without her horn. While the project focuses on songs featuring lyrics she wrote for several Bono compositions, Cressman also wrote words and music for three of her songs, contributing to the atmospheric suite of jazz-inflected, genre-bending tunes.
When she’s not performing her own music, Cressman can be found collaborating with some of the most illustrious figures in rock, funk, jazz and beyond, which have included Phish, Big Gigantic, Carlos Santana, Escort, Wycliffe Gordon, Nicholas Payton, Anat Cohen, The Motet, and Umphrey's McGee. Her passion for groove music hasn’t diluted her love of jazz. In 2016 SFJAZZ commissioned her to develop music for a concert celebrating the legacy of jazz trombonist/arranger Melba Liston. She also continues her long-standing musical relationship with world jazz innovator Peter Apfelbaum, performing with his band Sparkler. A fellow Bay Area native, Apfelbaum has hired Cressman since she was a young teen, a relationship that exemplifies the creative hothouse in which she was raised.
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