The renowned artist, songwriter and virtuosic musician replaces saxophones with violin solos, and showcases his signature vocal prowess as he reimagines standards by Rodgers & Hart, Ellington, Cole Porter, Lerner & Loewe and more. It’s a record that Bird’s had in him for nearly 30 years, yet after earning GRAMMY nominations, becoming an icon of indie rock and folk, acting in a prestige drama, scoring a Judd Apatow film, and collaborating with everyone from Phoebe Bridgers and Fiona Apple to Esperanza Spalding and The Muppets, Sunday Morning Put-On is unlike anything he has done before. While his music has always served as a sharp, singular reflection of the present, the album sees Andrew Bird travel back in time to his formative 20s.
Think of this record as an homage to mid-century, small-group jazz, or just think of it as Andrew Bird plays music he likes.
He was living in an old apartment hotel in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood, surrounded by retired Jesuit priests and nuns from the nearby university. Most Saturdays, he would stay up listening to a local late-night radio broadcast that played rare 78s of old blues, jazz and gospel, falling asleep then waking up to a morning show focused on the “Golden Era” of music’s 1930s and 40s.
Those nights and mornings have influenced Bird’s work in ways both conscious and subliminal ever since, and now – with the Andrew Bird Trio featuring Ted Poor on drums and Alan Hampton on bass, plus guitar from Jeff Parker and piano by Larry Goldings – he transcends nostalgia and pushes his limits as an improviser. Bird’s voice and strings together act like a reed instrument, captured completely live in southern California’s legendary Valentine Studios (Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Beach Boys). The sound of longing and depth in his voice has never been heard so clearly, until now.
