Great Barrington — We do not know the names of any of the musicians who will take the stage as Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox on March 17 at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. All we know for sure is that Scott Bradlee himself will not be among them.
But if the touring group, a rotating musical collective, is half as good as the studio lineup, we have nothing to fear, because PMJ in the studio is one truly fine ensemble (or two, or three). Mr. Bradlee’s skills as an arranger seem to include the ability to identify the most talented young players and vocalists in the world to perform his uncannily spot-on, vintage arrangements of modern hits—spot-on, that is, in respect to the musical eras he dials into when he transforms good songs into great ones and the occasional sow’s ear into a silk purse.
In fact, some of PMJ’s past vocalists have had real star power, and more than one of them has made such a strong showing on video that they’ve long since risen to personal stardom and successful solo careers. But when you have Bradlee’s ear for talent, this is bound to occur, given the massive exposure (1.9 BILLION views) afforded PMJ’s singers on the group’s YouTube channel. Faces inevitably change when your band is a cradle of talent.
A YouTube-only phenomenon in its early days, PMJ has enjoyed the luxury of selecting the ideal singer for each new arrangement, which is just one reason the band nails every style of music they play. (Another reason is that Bradlee’s arrangements are meticulously crafted.)
The musicians in PMJ’s expansive collection of YouTube videos deliver Bradlee’s arrangements with such conviction and rock-solid precision that everything sounds like it couldn’t possibly have been arranged or performed any other way—even though we know it was. The point is, you needn’t hear the original arrangements to enjoy the new ones. And anyway, quite often the original arrangements are inferior to Bradlee’s. (Kids these days…)
The sheer quantity of music Scott Bradlee has arranged and produced is staggering. When you see and hear even a fraction of it, you wonder if there isn’t some sort of prize he ought to receive. Lo and behold, Adweek recognized Bradlee in 2016 as one of “20 Content Creators Who Are Setting the Bar for Creativity in 2016.”
But that was seven years ago, and the man just kept cranking out one production after another, working steadily throughout the days of COVID lockdown, even releasing his highly useful guide, “Musician’s Rescue Kit – Earning Online Income As a Musician in Times of COVID-19 and Beyond,” which is full of remarkably practical advice like, “You are going to think of yourself as your own record label, and do everything that a record label does, only on a micro scale,” and, “It makes no sense to hold our recordings for six months while we wait to have enough songs to fill an album if our goal is to generate reliable online income over time.” All solid stuff and a must-read for recording musicians.
If you want to know what PMJ will perform in any given concert appearance, you’ll have to do a little sleuthing, because, like most touring bands, the group doesn’t publicly share its set list, and the tour doesn’t begin until March 10, so we don’t even have the benefit of online gossip.
Still, there are a few safe bets, based on past tours and the popularity of certain arrangements. For example, the band will not be allowed to leave the Mahaiwe stage before they have performed their wildly popular (over 100 million YouTube views) 1940s jazz interpretation of Megan Traynor’s “All About That Bass.” Their cover of “Creep” (over 96 million views) is obligatory. So is “Seven Nation Army” (over 59 million views) and several others. Clearly, the band is in a position to put together a killer set from it’s YouTube hits—a set that could go for hours without running out of tunes.
Postmodern Jukebox will play the Mahaiwe for one night only, March 17, at 8 p.m. Tickets here.
