After years of juggling life as a creative musician on the NYC scene to touring the globe as a sidekick to Michael Buble, one of the music industry's biggest stars, Nick Vayenas is ready to step once again into the spotlight as a musician of style and substance. With the self-titled 'Nick Vayenas', Nick displays an astonishing breadth of skill, featuring himself on vocals, trumpet, and trombone. However impressive the tools at his disposal are, they're merely in service of the mature, unique voice that brings them to life.
'Nick Vayenas' builds on the vision demonstrated on Nick's critically acclaimed 2009 debut album 'Synesthesia', which featured none other than Aaron Parks, Patrick Cornelius, Matt Brewer, Gretchen Parlato, and Kendrick Scott, and was notable for its blending of live acoustic performances with electronic sounds, for its compelling conceptual purity, and for featuring Vayenas' virtuosic mastery of the trombone. 'Nick Vayenas' frames Vayenas' talents more solidly within the Jazz and American songbook traditions. It also shows more sides of his personality, giving fully equal attention to new workings of classic material mixed with original compositions.
Nick eschews a compositional narrative thread, presenting a more complete representation of his musicianship. "I wanted to make an unpretentious record," Nick explains. "I like music that grooves hard, has strong melodic content, and exposes the listener to various moods and emotions."
Vayenas' evolution as an artist reflects a life in and of music. He seamlessly straddles both the commercial music industry and the more "creative" jazz and improvised music world, having worked comfortably with international pop superstars like Michael Buble and Josh Groban, and respected New York jazz artists like Kendrick Scott, Dayna Stephens, Blue Note recording artist Lionel Loueke (a long time collaborator) and Patrick Cornelius alike. He is equally at home performing in intimate New York jazz clubs such as The Jazz Gallery and The Blue Note and in huge arenas making music for tens of thousands such as the O2 Center in London, and his years spent touring the globe and paying his dues in the music scene have prepared him for the most musically personal statement of his life so far.
Personnel: Nick Vayenas (trumpet, trombone, vocals), Patrick Cornelius (alto saxophone), Lionel Loueke (guitar), Dan Kauffman (piano), Vicente Archer (bass), Kendrick Scott (drums)
