SoNuvo Interview

This Saturday, August 4th SoNuvo will play the Late Night Groove Series. We had an opportunity to catch up with them.

Blue Note: What should we expect this Saturday?

SoNuvo: This Saturday will be a celebration of the trio getting back together and playing again.  We've all been busy with other projects and traveling so we all had put SoNuvo on the back burner.  We're pulling out all the stops for this performance with special guests, new original songs, and new arrangements of some classics.

BN: Where does this name, SoNuvo, come from?

S: The name SoNuvo is a combination of "son" which is a prefix for sound, and "nouveau" which means new.  We thought of a ton of names and struggled to find one that both our American friends and French friends could pronounce.  It was a harder task than you might imagine.

BN: How was your tour de France? Did it influence the dynamic of the group?

S: While we were in France we grew exponentially as a group.  We had been spending a lot of time together in NY, performing weekly at Bubble Lounge, Chez Oskar and BXL, but in France we had time to workshop new material and hone our live show.  We found that aside from our musical roles in the band, we each had our role in our little family.  The personal rapport we built comes across in the musical performance and I think that people can see and hear it.


BN: Seth and Jerome have had a long history of playing together. How did Marie join the group? 

S: Jerome and I started playing together when we were about 15 years old in Cleveland, and continued playing in  different bands together here in NY, starting with Lee Hogans's band Pursuance.  Marie was a special guest at one of the Pursuance hits at Club Groove and I was blown away.  She had such an amazing harmonic and rhythmic sense, the likes of which I had never heard in a vocalist before or since, and such a great vibe and presence.  We started working on duets and thought that with the addition of Jerome we could have something really special.  The result was an environment for all of us to be featured and truly collaborate.  That's how I remember it, at least.

BN: Speak of past performing experiences and accolades and how that has affected the group. (2012 Montreux Jazz Voice Competition finalist, drumming with Sonny Rollins) 

S: All of our musical performances are a learning experience and affect the following performance.

BN: What should we be looking forward to with SoNuvo? 

S: Well, we have a couple special guests that we'd like to keep as a surprise.  It's going to be a lot of fun and a very interesting and memorable experience for everyone who attends.