Interview: Elizabeth Bougerol Learns to Savor Life in APPETITES at Joe's Pub

Singer Elizabeth Bougerol will be gracing the stage at Joe’s Pub on September 18 and 19 with an all-new solo project. The Hot Sardines co-creator and tenacious frontwoman is capping a decade with her little big band, which included performances from Montreal to Newport, 70 million Spotify streams, a sold-out 2024 Carnegie Hall debut, and 30 shows at Joe's Pub.

The upcoming Joe’s Pub show, Appetites, will mark Elizabeth’s first solo project. In it, she “examines the hunger that drove her to ditch her midtown cubicle and chase the dream of re-imagining classics by the likes of Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, and Peggy Lee in a 21st-century context.” The evening will feature “old-school jazz and blues (and a few stories) about pulling up a chair to the smorgasbord of life: Devouring the good, finding the sweet in the bitter, and learning to savor everything in-between.” Elizabeth will be backed by The Dulcetones.

Tickets are available on Joe’s Pub’s website, and they’re selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Elizabeth on the 19th while you can. (The September 18th performance is already sold out.)

We spoke about what led to this exciting new solo project and some of Elizabeth’s current musical inspirations. Read our conversation below.

What are you looking forward to about your upcoming Joe's Pub show?
We're bringing all-new arrangements of early jazz and blues to Joe's Pub -- all songs about life's greatest pleasures, some guiltier than others. I love a Cole Porter tune but I also love a down-and-dirty Professor Longhair vibe, so we're cooking up both, plus some Django Reinhardt, Johnny Mercer, and a few wildcards, like a Rickie Lee Jones song my 2-year-old likes revisited as a sweet swing tune.

How are you feeling about taking on your first solo project?
It's the first band with my name on it, but the music has been entirely, beautifully collaborative. MD and arranger J. Walter Hawkes has a gift for writing arrangements that feel cinematic (no surprise he's won Emmys composing for TV), and together we've created 15 new pieces that feel like a soundtrack to an imaginary movie. Add in vocal harmonies developed with Matt Ray (Taylor Mac, Bridget Everett) and Todd Londagin, and I can't wait for people to hear this project.

In your show, you're re-imagining works by some of the great jazz singers – like Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, and Peggy Lee – for the 21st century. What aspects of their performances or music inspires you?
Their authenticity. They combine the stories of the songs with their own personal story -- and when a singer lets you really see them in a performance, you see yourself.

What have you been listening to lately?

Mélusine by Cécile McLorin-Salvant. The self-titled debut album by French singer-songwriter Gabi Hartmann. Anything vocalist Martina DaSilva puts out.

What else is coming up for you?

We're starting to tour the project we created for Carnegie Hall earlier this year. Banned Jazz is a program about how jazz became the soundtrack of change with its message of freedom -- cultural, racial, and sexual -- that threatened the old-world order, especially in Nazi-occupied Europe. Just owning a Benny Goodman record could get you jailed in WWII Germany. Connecting across divides through live music and joy as an act of resistance feel very necessary right now.

---

Tickets to Elizabeth Bougerol's September 18 & 19 performances at Joe's Pub are available here.

Learn more about Elizabeth, including where to follow her, on her website.

Header photo credit: Shervin Lainez

To post a comment, you must register and login.