Brianna Thomas - Debut!

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Brianna Thomas - vocals

Featuring:

Reggie Thomas - piano

Dennis Carroll - bass

Greg Artry - drums 

Marquis Hill - trumpet

When a new jazz star arrives in The Big Apple, Everybody Knows. And ever since her arrival in New York City in 2007, Everybody Knows that the Peoria, Illinois-born vocalist/composer/arranger Brianna Thomas is the most evocative and accomplished vocalist of her generation. Blessed with a sublime and soulfully syncopated soprano voice that scats, swoons and croons at the speed of swing, Thomas has worked with a plethora of jazz stars, from Clark Terry, Dianne Reeves, and Russell Malone, to Houston Person, the Count Basie Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis, and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and is featured on Marsalis’ soundtrack to the motion picture, Bolden. She’s also performed at a number of premiere venues including Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Montreux Jazz Festival, The Apollo Theater and Ginny’s Supper Club.

Thomas grew up in the Midwest, surrounded by music at an early age. Her mother, a non-musician, had an eclectic record collection that included Bessie Smith, Dinah Washington and James Brown, and her father, drummer/vocalist Charlie “CJ” Thomas, took her to clubs when she was an infant, and she sang in his groups when she was six. Thomas toured Europe with the Peoria Jazz All-Stars, led by educator Mary Jo Papich at the age of twelve, and was named “Best High School Vocalist” by Down Beat magazine in 2002. After high school, Thomas moved to Nashville in 2005, and worked in numerous bands there, including a salsa ensemble.

In 2006, Thomas was invited by producer Todd Barkan to sing in JALC’s Women in Jazz Festival in New York. She moved there the next year, enrolled at The New School and graduated in 2011. She spent years singing in local jam sessions, won the 2009 Jazzmobile Vocal Competition, and eventually caught the ear of Wynton Marsalis, who first hired her to perform in his Harvard University seminar, Meet Me at the Crossroads. In 2014, Thomas toured South East Asia as a musical ambassador for the American Music Abroad program, performing jazz, folk, gospel and bluegrass with The Amigos Band. That same year, she released her first recording as a leader, You Must Believe in Love, featuring drummer Ulysses Owens, and Marcus Printup on trumpet and flugelhorn. She also performed a number of JALC concerts including Count Meets Duke (2017) Black, Brown and Beige, and The Best of Basie (2018), and (The Every Fonky Lowdown)(2018).

Everybody Knows is the title of Brianna’s latest CD, released in fall of 2020 and produced by the Grammy award-winning producer, Brian Bacchus (Norah Jones, Gregory Porter). The album received 4 stars in Downbeat Magazine. Thomas is backed by her eponymously-named ensemble, featuring pianist Conun Pappas, bassist Ryan Berg, Brazilian percussionist Fernando Saci, guitarist Marvin Sewell, and an alternating trio of drummers including John Davis, Kyle Poole, Wayne Smith and Darrian Douglas. The CD boasts a pleasing potpourri of reimagined standards and original compositions, played with a vibrant, Mississippi River blend of blues, jazz and R&B.

In an age where extra musical factors often account for an artist’s success, Brianna Thomas is a sterling reminder that a solid reputation built the old fashioned way, is the best way.

"She brings new meaning to, if it plays in Peoria, it will play anywhere."  -- President Bill Clinton

"[She] may be the best young straight ahead jazz singer of her generation."  -- Will Friedwald, Wall Street Journal

"A marvelous new artist who has all it takes to reach the top." -- Curtis Fuller, Jazz Trombonist

www.briannathomas.com