HOT COMBINATION to Return to Birdland with Bryce Edwards and Mike Davis
The sold-out show features RED NICHOLS and CLIFF EDWARDS tributes at Birdland's West 44th Street venue.
BIRDLAND JAZZ CLUB will present Vaudevillian troubadour Bryce Edwards of the venue's acclaimed “Frivolity Hour” and celebrated New York cornetist Mike Davis of The New Wonders in an encore presentation of their celebrated concert “Hot Combination” – honoring the iconic jazz duo Red Nichols and Cliff Edwards – on Sunday, June 7 at 5:30 PM.
The show sold out the venue when it debuted in September 2025. Edwards and Davis will be joined by an all-star band of traditional jazz specialists, including Ricky Alexander on reeds, Josh Holcomb on trombone, Felix Lemerle on guitar, Bryan Reeder on piano, Jay Rattman on bass saxophone, and Colin Hancock on drums. There is a $35-45 music charge. Birdland is located at 315 West 44th Street in New York.
A mainstay of New York studio groups in the 1920s, Red Nichols' cool tone, inventive cornet language, and avant-garde arrangements seem to set up an alternate jazz future that never was; and though the ukulele-toting, mouth-trumpeting Cliff Edwards (who would later voice Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio) may seem like a jazz age oddity at first blush, he was one of the era's most innovative and jazz-forward pop vocalists and an early pioneer of scat singing. In 1925, these two singular musical voices combined forces to make some of the most infectious records of the ‘20s, and now, one hundred years later, Davis and Edwards are joining forces to pay tribute and introduce the 21st century to these all-too-often forgotten figures.
Mike Davis has lovingly transcribed selections from these hot sessions and has recruited the unique vocalist Bryce Edwards, who has dug his heels in at the same intersection of jazz and vaudeville that was Cliff Edwards' (no relation) stock and trade, to embody the bygone performer's signature humor, heart, and driving ukulele. Davis, meanwhile, will demonstrate his intimate knowledge of Red Nichols' unique approach.
Bryce Edwards made his Jazz at Lincoln Center debut on opening night of the 35th annual Mabel Mercer Foundation Cabaret Convention. A unique vocalist that takes equal cues from the crooners and soft singers of the late 1920s and early ‘30s and from the bombastic voices of the earlier, acoustic phonograph era, he is also an instrumentalist who plays banjo, ukulele, tenor guitar, and mandolin in the modernistic jazz idiom. Edwards channels his passion into reviving some of that long lost intangible quality of the Jazz Age and igniting interest in an all too often overlooked era of music that, despite being a century old, still bubbles with humor, beauty, and often a defiant youthful energy. He brings his singular verve and sensibility to songs made famous by great artists such as Cliff Edwards, Ted Lewis, Jack Teagarden, Rudy Vallée, and Bing Crosby. Steeped in jazz age novelty, Edwards takes frivolity very seriously, and vows to entertain his audience or die trying.
As a sideman, he appears with various traditional jazz bands such as Drew Nugent and the Midnight Society, Buck and a Quarter, The Uptown Strutters, and the Rivertown Vintage Jazz Band. He is a regular guest on Susie Mosher's “The Lineup,” has appeared with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, and is a fan favorite at Jim Caruso's “Cast Party.” Edwards writes and records original music and lyrics for the serialized radio dramas “The Town with No Name” and “The Forgotten.” He also provides and performs original songs for Ayun Halliday's hit variety show, “Necromancers of the Public Domain.” Bryce is a member of “The Wayfaring Strangers,” a troupe led by Greg Kotis (Urinetown's librettist and lyricist) that performs improvised bluegrass musicals, and appears regularly at The PIT. He played a young Taylor Mac in the original New York Theatre Workshop reading of The Fre. Catch Bryce in the independent film, The Seasons, winner of the Hamilton New York International Film Festival in 2023. Bryce is also an award-winning fine artist and working freelance illustrator. He graduated summa cum laude from Baldwin Wallace University, class of 2021, with a BFA in classical acting and minor in studio art.
Mike Davis has a voice beyond his years on his instrument. His playing is imbued with the sounds of prohibition-era speakeasies, Hoovervilles of the depression, and glittering jazz palaces of the swing era, creating a timeless cocktail of American music. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, Mike began his trumpet instruction at age nine with Jerry Oram in Seattle and went on to study with Laurie Frink during his undergraduate years. Both encouraged his interest in early jazz styles, which led to his beginning to work professionally in New York City while still in college. He now appears regularly with Dandy Wellington and his band, Emily Asher's Garden Party, Glenn Crytzer, Terry Waldo, Baby Soda, Dan Levinson, and many other traditional jazz and swing bands. A regular at the celebrated jam session at Mona's Bar, Mike is one of the vanguard of young musicians bringing traditional jazz to the forefront of the New York City music scene.
Davis also leads the septet The New Wonders, which vividly invokes America's Jazz Age during the 1920s, when jazz was the soundtrack for dramatic national changes and played a central part in people's dreams, adventures and romances. Exquisite attention to musical detail and the band's deep passion for the original recordings is evident in each performance. Named for the model of cornet played by the enigmatic genius Bix Beiderbecke, the New Wonders craft each song as if it were a 78 rpm record, and the result has been praised by Downbeat Magazine and The New York Times. The New Wonders perform regularly around New York City, chasing the echoes of bootleg liquor and dancing feet. Their second album, Steppin' Out, is available now from Turtle Bay Records.
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