Rev. Shawn Amos Comes to Blackbox @ The Edye At The Broad Stage, Today

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica presents The Reverend Shawn Amos on Friday, September 7 at 8:00pm, inaugurating the blackbox @ the edye at The Broad Stage. blackbox @ the edye transforms The Edye into a club featuring up-and-coming jazz and blues artists.

In addition to christening the house, the entire season is curated and hosted by The Reverend Shawn Amos, and he and his house band will perform at other shows during the season as well.

New York's Cotton Club and Village Vanguard, Chicago's Kingston Mines, Kansas City's Reno Club, Los Angeles's Dunbar Hotel - these were more than just nightclubs. The Great American 20th century jazz and blues scene was a crucial gathering place where stories were shared and traditions handed down. In these sanctuaries, blacks, whites, rich and poor crossed lines to congregate and hold hands.

In the early 1960s, Amos' mother, Shirl-ee May, sang jazz and blues at Club Harlem - a storied Atlantic City night spot home to a generation of African American performers. Throughout the early-mid 20th century, jazz and blues clubs like Club Harlem were the epicenter of urban American nightlife.

Shawn Amos writes, "No doubt, people, souls were being saved. It's in the American rhythm and the rhyme. Jazz and blues is our music. It belongs to us. This music is ours. Jazz and blues is the tragedy and triumph of our shared history. It's the continual battle of our current circumstance. Jazz and blues cuts the shortest path from our heart to our head and up to a higher power. These deep grooves hold our fears, hopes and darkest demons. In this trying 21st century, jazz and blues reminds us of our interdependence."

Amos is followed by Sandra Booker singing Sarah Vaughan (October 5), Billy Valentine (November 2), Amy Keys (December 7), a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance (February 1), Mudbug Brass Band (March 1), Jennifer Keith Quintet (April 5), and Gabrielito (May 3).

Information, subscription packages and tickets priced $20 are available at thebroadstage.org or by calling 310.434.3200, or visiting at the box office at 1310 11thSt. Santa Monica CA 90401 beginning three hours prior to performance.

blackbox @ the edye at The Broad Stage made possible in part by a generous gift from Ann Petersen.

About Shawn Amos and his current album The Reverend Shawn Amos Breaks It Down

From West Coast clubs, to Deep South joints, to European festivals, to YouTube, to the podcast universe, the Reverend Shawn Amos' message of joyful blues is reaching an ever-increasing flock. The Rev's distinctive blend of black roots music, R & B, and stripped down rock n' roll brings a bracing, soul-deep musical experience to audiences starved for authenticity, for connection. "I derive a lot of satisfaction bringing people joy," he says.

Prior to his creation of the Reverend persona in 2013, folks knew Shawn Amos as producer (Solomon Burke's Live in Nashville, and Shout! Factory box set Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones), content creator for companies looking for ways to tell their stories on the internet, and Americana singer-songwriter who'd grown up in a dramatically dysfunctional L.A. home, a story the Rev serialized as Cookies & Milk in the Huffington Post.

The Rev also ran an 18-month stint as Artistic Director of Vibrato Jazz Grill in Los Angeles, owned by longtime friend Herb Alpert, co-founder of the legendary A & M record label. "It was a full-circle experience," the Rev says of the Vibrato gig. As the son of entrepreneur and William Morris agent Wally "Famous" Amos, the Rev says, "I grew up on the A & M lot." And back in his producer days, the Rev oversaw the reissue of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass' catalog, and a remix of the classic Whipped Cream & Other Delights album.

He has recorded The Reverend Shawn Amos Tells It (2014) and his latest The Reverend Shawn Amos Breaks It Down (2018), which expands his mission. This evolution is partly the result of over touring to supporting his chart-topping The Reverend Shawn Amos Loves You (2015). On the road, the Rev took risks, listened to his heart, and honed his chops in the midst of that came the seismic election of 2016, and the subsequent altering of the American landscape.

Also, by the time he set out to record The Reverend Shawn Amos Breaks It Down (2018) his life had changed dramatically. He also was newly single. All of the above significantly impacted the Rev as a father, citizen, musician, and African-American man, and all of it can be heard on The Reverend Shawn Amos Breaks It Down.

"When we toured the South in May of 2017, I could feel things changing post-Trump," he says. ""I was listening to a lot of MLK speeches, and reading him," the Rev says. "I wanted to be immersed in black history, in a resistance movement of the past. I was also listening to a lot of Staples Singers, especially [acclaimed 1965 LP] Amen. The degree to which I was aware of my race was distracting, striking, hard to ignore. It was powerful being in the South and listening to protest music, to freedom songs conceived to fuel a movement, with no thought toward commercialism."

To post a comment, you must register and login.