Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra Share 'Talking To Bonnie'

Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra write music steeped in 20th-century American traditions—jazz, folk, country, blues, and rock—but tackle modern subjects with urgency, humor, and a well of deep feeling. The quartet has released four studio albums and created the musicals No Place to Go and The Outer Space, both produced by the Public Theater in Joe's Pub, and have toured the U.S. and Europe.

Today, Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra announced the February 16 release of their fifth album,"Did You Do The Thing We Talked About?," sharing the heartfelt opening track, "Talking To Bonnie." 

“This is a song about a woman named Bonnie,” says Lipton of the track.  “She was a social worker, an administrator, a colleague and friend, a sister, daughter and grandmother, an activist and a partner, a traveler, a reader, a lover of art, and a wrestler of complications. She was also my mom. She had a great voice and a gift for being her whole self with people. I wanted to write a song specific to who she was, but one that might also evoke the Bonnie in your life, should you be so lucky to have had one. Some songs take a long time to finish writing. This one took a long time to start.

Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra have been a band since 2005 and features Eben Levy (guitar), Ian Riggs (standup bass), Vito Dieterle (sax), and Ethan on vocals. Ethan writes the songs and the quartet arranges them via telepathy and Doritos. It all adds up to a cockeyed view of an odd, disjointed age.

The band has been featured on Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and played venues including SF Jazz, Celebrate Brooklyn, MASS MoCA, the Flynn Center, The Green Music Center, Arts Emerson, Dublin's Pavilion, the Gate in London, The Troubadour, Theatre de la Ville, Pitchfork Paris and ATP.

Ahead of the release of Did You Do The Thing We Talked About? EL&HO will once again take over their sacred home turf of Joe's Pub for performances on January 25 and 26 at 7pm. Tickets are on sale now at the Joe's Pub website.

Amid the pandemic, the group considered hanging it all up. "We've had a run that would make my teenage heart tremble," continues Ethan. "We've played music in crazy places, built an audience that got what we were doing, blurred the lines between theater and music in a way I'm really proud of. I've loved playing with these guys, and what we've had has been special. But maybe, I thought, it was time. Maybe we should call it a day? Play a final show for the hometown crowd and go out while the getting is good?

"Or, I thought, we could make another fing album. Play the s out of some of these songs we've been playing, write some new ones, and maybe try to find that feeling again?

"And that's what we did. We set up in a big room, and our man Eben engineered the entire thing. We recorded in whole takes, with no overdubs or extra tracking, just the four of us playing together in a shared space. It was hard work, especially given how annoying we all are, but it did the trick. The feel came back.

 

"The songs on this album are about some of that rocky terrain we've all been walking," says Lipton of the LP. "They were songs I needed to write, and songs we needed to play. I hope they make you feel something too.”

Watch the new lyric video here:

 

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