Adi Braun....

“Sassy, Scintillating and Sultry” (Joe Montague, The Jazz Review), Canadian Jazz Vocalist and 2007 MAC Award Nominee (Best Major Jazz Vocalist) ADI BRAUN is pleased to release her third CD, “Adi Braun – Live at the Metropolitan Room”, recorded October 26, 2007, at New York’s acclaimed jazz/cabaret venue, The Metropolitan Room. This exciting live-off-the floor album includes an engaging mixture of standards and originals, including two of Adi Braun’s own compositions. Sharing the stage with Adi that night were the incomparable Tedd Firth (piano) and Steve Watson (bass). Critic Joe Regan Jr., present that evening wrote: “I have seen Braun many times in the past two years and she has a marvelous vocal instrument, but this particular rainy night she was singing better than ever and the emotional dimension of each song’s lyrics was clear and communicative.” (New York, Cabaret Exchange, October 31, 2007) Adi has a long list of cabaret, concert and theatre successes to her credit.

She has performed in every major jazz and concert venue in Toronto, has toured Canada, the United States and Europe, and released two previous, critically-acclaimed CDs, “Delishious”, and “The Rules of the Game”. “Delishious” was short-listed for a 2004 Juno Award nomination, and both CD’s topped radio charts from coast to coast and made the CBC “Hit List” in the year of their release. The song “Show Me Yours”, from “The Rules of the Game”, was featured on an episode of the U.S. hit TV series “The “L”
Word”. Born in Toronto, Adi grew up in Europe surrounded by music and musicians. Her parents were opera singers, and her father, Victor Braun, was one of Canada’s leading baritones. Her first instrument was piano, which she began studying at the age of six. With no formal voice lessons, she made her first pop/jazz recording at age 19. Hearing a natural voice, her parents encouraged her to follow in the family tradition; upon returning to Canada, Adi trained classically, obtaining her Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.

She began her singing career as a classical recitalist, a soloist with orchestra and on stage with Canadian opera companies, alongside her brother, baritone Russell Braun. A co-founder of Toronto’s classical cabaret company “Blue Rider Musical Productions,” Adi started “singing sideways” and soon returned to the music she loved, what she calls “cabarazz”, drawing on aspects from both cabaret and jazz. After winning a local competition in 2001, she was catapulted to centre stage as one of Canada’s leading jazz vocalists. Adi’s sophisticated style and subtle delivery evokes such vocal greats as Sarah Vaughan, Lotte Lenya, Judy Garland and Rosemary Clooney. Her repertoire ranges from the Great American songbook, to European cabaret, to contemporary songs by Canada legend’s Shirley Eikhard and Gordon Lightfoot as well as her own originals. Whether she is singing in English, French, Spanish or German, Adi Braun is “a power-frau who gives jazz standards a unique touch, telling stories that are miniature life moments” (Rheinische Post, Düsseldorf, Germany). Adi’s musical sidemen have included the late Doug Riley, Mark Eisenman, Dave
Restivo, Gene DiNovi, Tedd Firth, Steve Wallace, George Koller, Neil Swainson, Jim Vivienne, Dave Young, Terry Clarke, John Sumner, Brian Czach, Davide DiRenzo, Mark Kelso, Tony Quarrington, and Perry White, among others.

Adi Braun has performed for standing-room-only audiences at such renowned clubs and concert venues as Toronto’s Top o’ the Senator, the Montreal Bistro, the Rex Jazz and Blues Bar, Revival, and Live@ Courthouse, New York City’s Birdland, Joe’s Pub, Metropolitan Room, Iridium Jazz Club and the Rose Theatre at Jazz at Lincoln Centre, and San Francisco’s Empire Plush Room and the Octavia Lounge, Düsseldorf’s Maschinenhalle, Munich’s Jazzclub Unterfahrt and Florence’s Jazz Club Firenze. Also a regular at jazz and summer festivals, Adi Braun has appeared from coast to coast in Canada and continues to receive rave reviews with each performance. “The world is blessed...a major jazz singer.”
(Scott Yanow, L.A. Jazz Scene)