1. Done (feat. Stephanie Lambring)
2. The Island (feat. Mary Bragg)
3. All We Need (feat. Jaimee Harris)
4. Give A Damn 
5. I Couldn't See
6. Superstitious
7. What We Daydream Now (feat. David Ramirez)
8. In My Dreams
9. Don't Give Up On Me
10. See You Again

Produced by Mary Bragg, at the studio of Jon Estes in June 2021.

All songs written or co-written and performed by Natalie Price. 

Other writers: Zach Berkman (Track 7), Matt Odmark (Track 6).

Other featured musicians and performers: Jon Estes, Liz Estes, Josh Kaler, Megan Coleman, Ryan Madora, Mary Bragg, Jaimee Harris, Stephanie Lambring, David Ramirez, Lang Freeman.

Natalie Price

Give A Damn

04 - Give A Damn

Deception was composed in 2012.  It was awarded first place in the 2013 Susanville Symphony Composition Competition, American Composer Category.  The Symphony premiered the work at their Modern Composer concerts on April 19, and 21, 2013 with the composer conducting.

This recording is from a live performance by the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra at the Music and Words festival on January 31,2015.

Some of the thematic material in Deception began as underscore for a film.  The opportunity to expand on these ideas sparked the inspiration to create the piece.  Deception is a musical interpretation of the emotional progression felt when deceived: confusion, shock, anger, and disbelief.  The composition begins with a motif of intense slow glissandi, exploiting the microtones between the notes. Tone clusters shifting in dynamics, register, and timbre provide the harmonic background.  Immediately following is an expressive theme stated by the Cellos. These melodic fragments become the foundation of the work.  As the themes are developed, new motifs are presented in a series of dynamic and rhythmic peaks and valleys.  The ultimate climax is reached with a culmination of the main thematic ideas heard simultaneously in a rhythmic frenzy.  In the conclusion, the oboe now performs the expressive theme, while the intense glissandi become a whisper when stated by the violins as harmonics.


Deception

RECONNECTING is a programmatic composition that tells the story of participants in a unique rehabilitation program for juvenile and adult offenders with mental illness or substance abuse issues. The Treatment Court of the Delaware County Juvenile Court, Delaware County Municipal Mental Health Docket, and Maryhaven Treatment Center are designed to help participants gain control over their illness or addiction, to take responsibility for both their offense and their personal development, and to reconnect as healthier individuals to their families and community. The Central Ohio Symphony's Reconnecting program developed the groundbreaking therapeutic drum circles for all three of these programs. I traveled several times to Delaware to conduct research for the composition. I attended juvenile and adult court hearings and met with the program’s support team comprised of the Magistrate, Probation Officer, Therapist, and Treatment Services Department Head. This allowed me to gain valuable knowledge of the program and see firsthand the efforts taking place to help rehabilitate the offenders. I also attended a drum circle session and was able to speak directly with the participants about their experiences in the program, as well as witness the type of drumming techniques they were learning. From these discussions and observations I created the structure for RECONNECTING, which is built on the progression of the participants though the court program: their initial Offense, three rehabilitation phases, Graduation, and the Future.

The three rehabilitation phases possess common symbolic elements that create cohesion within the piece. The “Call and Response” sections represent the progress of the participants through the program and their relationship with the court and wider community. In phase one there is a “Call” from the orchestra but no response from the drummers. In phase two the orchestra’s “Call” is met with a mutual “Response.” In phase three the “Call” is initiated by the drummers and the “Response” is from the orchestra. The support team theme likewise becomes more positive and nurturing with every iteration. A gavel strike, in the percussion section, represents the frequency of the court hearings in each stage of the program, and is heard less regularly as the participants are granted more independence. Each phase also contains a “Story” which is directly inspired from my observations while conducting research for the composition. In addition to “Call and Response," other drumming techniques common to drum circle sessions that appear in the score include “Heartbeat,” “Shaker Pass,” and “Speaking” of names. The “Heartbeat” goes through several emotional transformations throughout the piece ranging from terrified to proud. The “Shaker Pass” is used in the Promotion sections to symbolize the passage of time. During the Graduation portion of the piece, the drummers announce themselves individually by improvising a musical interpretation of “Speaking” their names with the drums. This gives them an opportunity to express how they would like to be perceived on graduation day.

This recording is from the world premiere performance.  The orchestra was performed by the Central Ohio Symphony.  The drum circle was comprised of participants and staff of the court rehabilitation program from which the composition was inspired.  The drummers did not read music, but were able to learn the drumming patterns through word phrases that matched the written rhythms in the piece.  Flash cards were used to inform the drummers which techniques and rhythmic patterns would occur next.

RECONNECTING

Recorded by Fat Fuse Music (Grant Johnson + Chris Cox)

pedal steel: Simon Page

nashville moon

Franz Schubert - Impromptu in G flat major op.90 No.3
Sofja Gülbadamova (piano)

Franz Schubert - Impromptu Ges-Dur op.90 Nr.3

You Don't Dare

Marnie has a unique perspective and gives an impassioned delivery of her experience, strength, and hope. This is a must-hear, for sure.

Story Marnie  20180302

Our friend RR recorded on 1 track off the board last week. You can hear us there every Tuesday, 6-8pm.  We didn't have our dear drummer this night. 

Mitch Watkins - guitar
Pat Harris - Bass
Sarah Sharp - Vocals

For No One

By Kaliyo - Andrea Perry & Sarah Sharp
Vocals: Sarah Sharp, all other vocals and instruments, production, mixing: Andrea Perry

Come On (Surely We Can Work it Out) - Kaliyo

The Jitterbug Vipers transform the swinging sounds of 1930s and 40s "viper" jazz into 21st Century music that enchants and delights listeners of all ages and brings out the dancer in folks from most every walk of life. The “swingadelic” quartet is one of Austin, Texas’ most popular and pervasive live acts, enlivening and entertaining audiences on an almost nightly basis, everywhere from folk festivals to jazz bars, not to mention a residency at the classic Continental Club. 

Whenever they strike up the band, this foursome summons up the spirit of The Vipers’ namesakes, the pot tokers of the jazz era who personified cool, both on the stage and in the back alley, flashing knowing smiles while pumping out party music with glee and expertise. Think Fats Waller, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Cab Calloway brought to contemporary times with relentless, red-hot combo musicality.

Phoebe's Dream, the group's second studio album, offers up a sampler of the band’s signature style of combining hot licks and cool tunes. A bounty of alluring melodies, witty wordplay and enticing grooves move in sexy syncopated rhythms on nine original songs that emerge as instant classics. There are two additional tunes, one at the core of musical Americana and the other an overlooked gem with an intriguing heritage. Billie Holiday's evocative masterpiece "Billie's Blues" is joined by "Undecided", a song which hit the pop charts in a version by the Ames Brothers in the early 1950s but actually dates back decades earlier. The riffs and rhythms of all the tunes creatively channel 1930s and '40s jazz and swing styles, centered on the jitterbug or lindy hop dance music that was all the rage back then. The themes draw directly from that original reefer sensibility and the laughter and good times that run rampant within the Vipers’ camp.

From the slink syncopation of the opening title track to master guitarist Slim Richey's spritely gypsy jazz six-string workout that closes the disc, "Django's Birthday," Phoebe's Dream is a totally legal buzz that packs a mighty kick. Richey’s legend gets a cool-as-an-ice cube reading on "Dangerous," while the smoke of "the devil's cabbage" wafts through the sultry swing of "A Viper Just The Same," the cheeky "Stuff It" (co-written by Vipers singer Sarah Sharp and Elizabeth McQueen of Western swingers Asleep at the Wheel), the haunting ballad "When You're High" and romantic slow dance of "Viper Moon." Add to that the boozy ramble of "That Was Just The Sauce Talking" and bluesy rumination of "Trouble" and you've got a collection of tunes that provide delicious mood music for just about any and every occasion.

The tentpole of the group is jazz/swing guitar legend Richey, known as "The Most Dangerous Guitar Player in Texas," a title his playing lives up to and more throughout Phoebe's Dream. Hailing from the small town of Atlanta in the northeast corner of the Lone Star State, near where such guitar giants as Leadbelly and T-Bone Walker also grew up, his love of music and dance rhythms began in his childhood on hearing R&B and jazz on the radio at the home of a neighboring African American family. That was followed by bluegrass on Shreveport's KWKH, which also broadcast the famed Louisiana Hayride, where Richey later saw Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and other legends perform. Dixieland from New Orleans on WWL rounded out the mix. So it was no surprise that after taking up guitar and mandolin, Richey was playing a local daily radio show with The Black Bayou Buckaroos by his teens, as well as gigging on a frequent basis, something he’s still doing more than a half century later.

In the years to follow, he played in Texas gubernatorial candidate Ralph Yarborough's campaign band and after college at Oklahoma University settled in Fort Worth, where he started a mail order businesses selling musical instruments. Richey founded Ridgerunner Music in 1975, which was at the forefront of the "newgrass" and "jazzgrass" movements, issuing some 30 albums by such acts as Country Gazette and Muleskinner and noted players like Alan Munde, Marty Stuart, Sam Bush, Roland White, Allison Brown & Stuart Duncan, Buck White and others as well as his own Slim Richey's Jazz Grass.

Richey has performed and recorded with Herb Ellis, Marc Johnson, Ricky Skaggs, Ray Price, Buddy Franco and others, led numerous busily-gigging combos, established a regular and popular presence on the bluegrass and acoustic music festival circuit, and has become known internationally for his distinctive Southwestern jazz and swing style. Taking his cues from such guitar giants as Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessel and Charlie Christian, he has been a key player in the Austin jazz scene since arriving in the city in the early 1990s, leading various groups like the Vipers, Slim Richey's Dream Band and others. "Slim Richey is the plenipotentate of jazz guitar," says noted Austin singer, songwriter and guitarist Jon Dee Graham of the True Believers "Watching his hands to try and understand what he’s doing is like watching a waterfall to try and understand water.”

He's surrounded in the Jitterbug Vipers by three women affectionately known as his Hidy Hidy Hos. Singer and songsmith Sarah Sharp attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music. While digging deeply into the school’s extensive music library to become expert and adept in singing the great American popular music catalog, she became enamored, if not obsessed, with the sound and stylings of Billie Holiday, her major inspiration both then and now.

After leaving Berklee, Sharp did a stint in London playing clubs like Ain't Nothin' But the Blues Bar in SoHo, before settling back in her home state of Texas. In addition to being the sultry singer for the Vipers, Sharp collaborates with Andrea Perry as Kaliyo, whose songs are used internationally in movies, TV shows and commercials (most recently in ABC's Revenge and a Channel's 2012 spring/summer campaign). She began working with Richey as a substitute singer for such gifted vocalists as Kat Edmonson, Emily Gimble and Katie Holmes in his various groups.  In due time she earned full membership in the Vipers and is now not only the voice of the group, but also its primary songwriter.

Bassist Francie Meaux Jeaux may not have been a dedicated music fan while growing up in Dallas even though she did witness The Beatles play live in Houston at age 13. Visual art was her passion until she saw Leon Russell and Freddie King perform at a college concert and right after moved to to study at the University of Texas. Her friend Stephen Trued, who played banjo in the Dallas "bluethrash" band Killbilly not only turned Francie onto bluegrass music, but also introduced her to Richey at a Christmas party. After the two united as a couple, "he put a bass in my hands," Meaux Jeaux explains, and showed her the basics. "It was like the walls sang and I just wanted the walls to keep singing." She honed her chops on the upright bass at festival campfire picking sessions and playing with Dan Hicks, Michelle Shocked, Bruce Robison and others before becoming Slim's bass mainstay.

The Jitterbug Vipers lineup is anchored by Masumi Jones, a drummer of unusual grace and power. Jones, who leads her own jazz combo when time away from the Vipers permits, was born outside of the Japanese capital, hence her nickname of “The Tokyo Tsunami”, although Richey prefers the more colorful “Geisha Girl Gone Wild”. Growing up in Hiroshima, she started on piano at age three but by her early teens she took up the drums after becoming enthralled with big-band music. Like singer Sharp, Jones is a graduate of Berklee and she counts legendary jazz drummers such as Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Art Taylor and Butch Miles as inspiration. She played in Japanese all-woman piano trios and a female big band before landing in Austin and meeting Richey at a jam, after which he hired her without even hearing her sticks meet the skins. Possessing similarly skewed sensibilities she was a perfect fit, both musically and personally, to be the ideal beat keeper for the Vipers.



Django's Birthday

Sarah Sharp is a multiple Austin Music Award winning songwriter and Jazz singer. As a former member of Jitterbug Vipers, the DIY release of her album of Viper inspired originals “Phoebe’s Dream” earned her top 5 placements in the 2014 Austin music awards for Best Female Vocalist, Producer, Songwriter, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Band of the Year, Best Jazz Band and was Featured on NPR’s Song Travels with Michael Feinstein. Feinstein suggested that her original songs were destined to become part of the Great American Songbook.

Sarah’s songs have been featured worldwide in ad campaigns for Chanel, Dell, Kia, ABC’s “Revenge”, E.L.F. cosmetics, among many others and on TV shows such as “The Good Wife”, “Grandfathered” and more.

Sarah recently recorded her 1st solo album in over a decade in Brooklyn and Austin. Expected release in 2018.

Django's Birthday

SarahSharp

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