Andrew Bird Goes Jazz For New Trio Album ‘Sunday Morning Put-On’

Andrew Bird detailed the first album with the Andrew Bird Trio, Sunday Morning Put-On, set for release on May 24 via Loma Vista Recordings. The record which sees the acclaimed violinist revisiting the jazz standards that influenced him is previewed with “I Fall In Love Too Easily” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face.”

The songs mentioned above were written by Sammy Cahn/Jule Styne and Alan Jay Lerner/Frederick Loewe respectively. Andrew and his trio, drummer Ted Poor and bassist Alan Hampton, also reimagine tunes by Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and more. Sunday Morning Put-On’s sole original, “Ballon de Peut-etre,” closes out the album.

Andrew detailed the time in his life when he was under the “spell” of the music found on Sunday Morning Put-On.

“When I was in my 20s, I lived in an old apartment-hotel in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. It was cheap and inhabited mostly by retired Jesuit priests and nuns from nearby Loyola University. The gym had old Schwinn 10-speed bicycles up on cinder blocks for low-rent pelotons, an old swimming pool where they played opera, and the steam room was a clubhouse for the local Russian mob. Most Saturday nights I’d stay up listening to a radio show called ‘Blues Before Sunrise’ on WBEZ from 12-4am. The DJ, Steve Cushing, played old rare 78rpm records of blues, jazz and gospel. Then I’d sleep for a few hours and wake to Dick Buckley’s show, also on WBEZ, featuring what he called ‘Golden Era’ jazz from the 30s and 40s. My love for a certain era of jazz up through the mid-20th Century has been constant through many transmutations in my own work, the bulk of which is not jazz at all. Once I had some distance between myself and this time when I was under its spell, I wanted to immerse myself in it again.”

With help from Jeff Parker on guitar and piano from Larry Goldings, Andrew Bird Trio captured Sunday Morning Put-On live at the historic Valentine Studios (Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Beach Boys) in Los Angeles.

Watch the Andrew Bird Trio perform “I Fall In Love Too Easily” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face” at Valentine Studios below:

Andrew Bird will celebrate the release of Sunday Morning Put-On with a pair of concerts beginning in his native Chicago at The Green Mill Jazz Club on May 29. Bird and his trio will also perform at the Lodge Room in Los Angeles on June 3. Check out Andrew Bird’s full itinerary with ticket info below.

Sunday Morning Put-On Tracklist:

1. I Didn’t Know What Time It Was
2. Caravan
3. I Fall In Love Too Easily
4. You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To
5. My Ideal
6. Django
7. I Cover The Waterfront
8. Softly, As A Morning Sunrise
9. I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face
10. Ballon de Peut-etre