Interview: Julie Benko & Jason Yeager Talk Annual MARDIS GRAS SPECTACULAR at Birdland

On Monday February 16 at 7 pm, Julie Benko (Funny Girl) is back with her critically acclaimed annual Mardi Gras show at Birdland Jazz Club in Manhattan. She and her all-star band, Euphonic Gumbo, helmed by her husband, Jason Yeager, will be celebrating the release of their new album. The show features Benko on vocals and the Euphonic Gumbo band with Jason Yeager (piano, arrangements), Linus Wyrsch (reeds), Andy Warren (trumpet), Ron Wilkins (trombone), Michael O’Brien (bass) and Jay Sawyer (drums), plus tap dance from special guest John Manzari, Benko’s co-star in Funny Girl on Broadway.

See a sneak peak of the album, a video for “The Lakes of Pontchartrain” that just dropped today.

Below, read a conversation with Benko and Yeager about the February 16 show and new album.

What inspired you to make a new album based on your annual Mardi Gras show?

Julie Benko: Whenever we do this show, everyone is buzzing! It's so different from anything else we do. The music is so special, so buoyant, and has so much character and history. And Jason's arrangements simply dazzle. At the end of the night, everyone is asking to take the music home. So, we finally decided to capture it. In Jason's dream world, we'd have recorded the whole thing live at Birdland, but I love what is possible in the studio with large ensembles. So we struck a happy medium by including a live track at the end.

When you first learned about Mardi Gras, did you ever think your passion for it would turn into all of this?

Jason Yeager: I'll let Julie take this one!

JB: I think when you fall in love with anything, you are amazed at where your passion will lead you. When we booked a trip to New Orleans, I did not expect for my musical life to shift toward this style of music! Just as when I walked into Starbucks one day, I didn't expect to find my life partner! And when I walked into an audition at the JCC in high school, I didn't expect to land on Broadway one day! But where there is love, there is a depth of joy that keeps bringing surprise after surprise to your journey.

JY: I think her enthusiasm for early jazz got me more interested in digging deeper into the music of people like Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Sidney Bechet. And then her love of all things New Orleans really got us going on performing this kind of material on gigs well before we started the annual Mardis Gras show at Birdland. In fact, New Orleans music has appeared on all three of her other albums, but this is the first record to really explore it in depth, in the context of a Mardis Gras celebration.

How did you decide what tracks to include in the new album? Did you make any arrangement updates or other changes from the live show?

JB: We developed this repertoire over many years, so it was a very organic process of celebrating songs that happened to find us. Every song that we recorded has been with us a long time now, and they feel like old friends. I discovered "Pretty Baby" while studying Tony Jackson, who appears as a character in the play I wrote about New Orleans, but then it took on new life once we had a baby and wanted to dedicate it to her. "Ma Belle Evangeline" started as an ode to Princess and the Frog, but once I read Longfellow's poem I knew I wanted to find a way to meld the two together. I could go on (but I won't, to spare you). Each song feels so personal to us.

JY: We selected the most dynamic, exciting tunes from the live show, and only omitted a few songs from the live show that had already been featured on our prior albums together. The exception to this is "Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans," which appeared on our duo album Hand in Hand (2022); on Euphonic Gumbo, a live version from Birdland closes out the record.

I am always tweaking and modifying the arrangements! When I'm working on an arrangement, I feel that it is always alive with possibility--and therefore it's never really done, or at least not frozen. So leading up to this recording, I did make some tweaks in the parts- for instance, the bass line parts in “Funky Fête (Iko Iko/Tootie Ma),” and the horn parts in the “Down in New Orleans” medley. These choices can be fun or excruciating depending on the situation! Mostly, they were small updates, as the overall structural choices were made for the live shows, which we've been doing for three years. We also wanted to capture the feeling of those live shows, because they are infectiously fun and delightful.

With these charts I'm also trying to leave room for the musicians, instrumentalists and Julie to be free and improvise-- and over the course of our Birdland shows, several of their ideas and choices have ended up in the arrangements themselves.

One song that developed quite differently from the live show is “Jai Passe,” a Cajun folk song. The arrangement I wrote was minimal, and in post-production, we had our friends overdub violin, accordion, guitar, and banjo, and had their entrances staggered. We wanted this feeling of a back-porch jam session, with musicians joining in as they arrived and felt inspired. Other songs on the record feel like a big parade, while “Jai Passe” feels like a late-night soirée on the bayou, gently jamming after the boisterousness of a big party has settled down.

Can you tell us a little about what you have planned for the live album release concert at Birdland on the 16th?

JB: Trivia! Prizes! Beads! A parade! Tap dancing! Depending on my schedule and baking abilities, king cake! And, of course, music. I'm especially thrilled that the album will be available not only in CD form, but in vinyl for the very first time. There's something so exciting about your music living in a non-digital format. It feels so right for this type of music. I can't wait to sign some copies of the vinyl in the receiving line after the show!

Do you have any other projects or shows coming up that you'd like to share?

JB: I will be playing Emma Goldman in Ragtime on Broadway through March 29th. In the spring, we'll embark on a tour, hitting San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, Atlanta, and a few other soon-to-be-announced cities. The best way to know about upcoming gigs is to join my mailing list (on my website!).

JY: I’m playing around NYC with a number of groups. On March 25th, I’ll play Carnegie Hall with jazz violinist Jason Anick.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

JB: A lot of fans come to this show because they know me from Broadway but don't know much about this style of music. But when they leave our show, they are so excited to discover more about New Orleans jazz specifically. If you don't know New Orleans music, I hope you'll consider joining us. It's an infectious music, deep and joyful and fun. It's a great way to spend a cold February night in New York City if you can't make it down to the Big Easy for the big fat Tuesday!

Header photo credit: Kevin Ailey

Learn more about Julie Benko's upcoming shows and where to buy her new album when it comes out on February 20th on her website.