Julian Fleisher Releases FINALLY Today

New York City's favorite multi-hypenate, Julian Fleisher, is Finally done with his new album and he's ready for the world to hear it. Today, May 13, 2014 Julian will release Finally on Modern Records and he's partnered up with Out Magazine to premiere his first single, the album's title track and also the song that means the most to Julian. Of the song, he says, "I think I wrote 'Finally' when a friend was over for lunch when I was sick. While we chatted, I had the guitar under my arm and I was absentmindedly picking away as we talked." He goes on, "I couldn't begin to tell you what we discussed, but by the time lunch was over, the song was halfway done. Written while flying on Robitussin, espresso, chicken soup and Advil." Julian will be celebrating the release of Finally with an album release show at Joe's Pub on May 14, 2014.

The 10-track album was written and produced by Julian and follows his critically acclaimed Rather Big album. Finally is a bit more understated, but still includes the Julian flair and voice that fans and critics love. The album was recorded in NY and includes 8 original tracks and 2 covers for good measure. It also features Julian's longtime collaborators Tedd Firth, Nick Mancini, Pete Smith, Matt Clohesy, Chris Michael and Tom Murray. Finally takes listeners on a more intimiate, personal journey on which the writing is the focus. Shedding his usually brainy covers and full-tilt horn arrangements that so characterized Rather Big, this new album puts the focus on Julian as a writer, a craft he's been developing more and more over the last few years. That's not to say he doesn't give a nod to his well known material on Finally. Just check out his incredibly fun cover of the classic "Tomorrow" from Annie which closes out the album.

When asked how he felt about moving away from his well-known sound, Julian says, "No question, it feels like a rise to me." He goes on, "Naturally, I wonder what folks will make of a recording that's more intimate and less showy than my old stuff. But, the truth is, people have always responded intensely to my own tunes and many of them were written without my Rather Big Band in mind. I've kept my rhythm section, of course. I mean, you would too if yours could play like mine does. But I asked them to tone down their insane virtuosity and to turn their talents to simpler gestures and more direct statements. The results, I think, are amazing. As is often the case, when you put restrictions on talent like that, you discover a world of new ideas that are as compelling as they are surprising."

Fleisher came to New York from his native Baltimore via New Haven. The son of world-renowned concert pianist Leon Fleisher, Julian was first heard as a boy soprano, a student of the classical repertoire at his hometown's prestigious Peabody Conservatory of Music. After his four-year stint at Yale-where he sang in concerts, with á cappella singing group Redhot & Blue and on stage in roles ranging from The Threepenny Opera's Mack the Knife to Guys and Doll's Sky Masterson-Julian took on New York. There, his love of singing unencumbered by the demands of playing a role led him out of the theater and into the nightclub, where his wide embrace of all corners of the pop songbook, his barn-burning Rather Big Band and a fresh and irreverent performance style garnered him rave reviews and comparisons to predecessors as diverse as Sammy Davis, Jr., Mel Torme and Lenny Bruce.

Along the way, he continued to intersect with other creative types as a producer, curator, and bringer-together of makers-of-things. For the record, he also wrote a whole bunch of books, including the "Smart Series" of grammar and vocabulary-building audio books from Random House and The Princeton Review as well as The Drag Queens of New York: All Illustrated Field Guide (Riverhead), a semi-trade discourse on the cultural history of drag in NYC. His regular gigs at such stalwart New York venues as Joe's Pub, BAM, Symphony Space, The 92nd St Y and The World Trade Center's Winter Garden led him to start writing his own songs and to collaborating with a host of partners both on and off the stage.

Between his concerts, the recording studio, the theater and his popular podcast Julian Fleisher's Guilty Pleasures, Julian has recently sung, written, gigged, produced or appeared with, among others, Kiki & Herb, Molly Ringwald, Martha Plimpton, Issac Mizrahi, Jennifer Holiday, Lauren Graham, Ana Gasteyer, Nellie McKay, Rufus Wainwright, Mo Rocca, Bridget Everett, Paul Schaefer, Keith Carradine, Joshua Malina, David Rakoff and even, Sally Field.

For more, visit: www.julianfleisher.com, julianfleisher.bandcamp.com, www.twitter.com/julianflei, www.instagram.com/julianflei, and www.soundcloud.com/julian-fleisher.

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