Shelly Bhushan: Open To Experimenting with New Ideas
Singer, songwriter, guitarist, and leader, Shelly Bhushan continues to discover new elements in her creativity. Exploring deeper into the flexibility and range of her vocals. Traveling further into her musical sensibilities and her appreciation for all types of musicians outside of her comfort zone.
She imparts, "It’s not simply focused on my vocal takes and performance. I want to experiment more, I want to do more interesting musical projects that make me feel uncomfortable."
Reaching beyond her solo projects, which encompass her 2005 EP The Shelly Show, 2007 LP Picking Daisies, 2010 EP Make Believe, 2013 LP Something Out of Nothing, 2020 single When Will It Be Christmas, and her 2021 single Heat, Bhushan took the plunge into putting her faith in other musicians to help shape her songs, and for her to help shape their melodic verses. A risk that previously left her abandoned, relying on her own resources to keep afloat.
She took such a plunge one time before, back in 2000, when she responded to a classified ad, searching for a singer in the group Live Honey. She welcomed the risk then, moving from her home in Dallas, Texas to New York City. The group broke up, leaving Bhushan to fend for herself in the wilds of the Big Apple. She stayed afloat by becoming a solo artist, and intended to remain one.
That is until recently, when she teamed up with New York City-based guitarist Anthony Lanni for their group The Beveled Edges. Their debut release I Guess We're Not Alone opens 2025 for Bhushan with a new adventure. One in which she finds herself on a team, like she had with Live Honey, but this time the team players know who they are. They are a guiding star for her, as she has been for them through this project.
She recalls, "I don’t exactly remember when I met Anthony, but in my brain I’ve known him forever and I also know I met him at LIC BAR in Queens."
"The LIC BAR has always had an amazing musical community because of Gus Rodriguez," she touts. "He has curated the music there for years. [There,] Anthony has this amazing band called Os Clavelitos - they call themselves an American Samba band. They perform all over the city and basically bring joy to all who hear them. His band is really fun," she remarks affectionately.
"Anthony is a really talented and skilled musician and band leader," she extol s. "He has spent years honing his craft as a songwriter and nylon string guitarist. His work with Os Clavelitos really resonated with me - lots of melodic songs and interesting ideas."
"In the beginning," she regards, "my goal wasn’t to make an album with anyone, honestly. I had written the song: 'Paris Isn’t Paris without You' - I had written it acapella while walking down the Rue De Rivoli and I was like… I really like this song. But it doesn’t fit my solo project. It needed a different vibe."
"I wondered if Anthony would be into working on it with me," she considers, "because his project had the vibe i was thinking of. And he and I had sat-in in each other’s projects before. So, we already knew each other pretty well. So. I kind of bookmarked that idea."
As fortune would have it, she recounts, "And one day, I was walking in the neighborhood and I ran into him. We chatted a bit and then I asked him if he’d be into working on 'Paris' with me. He said yes… and we started working on it."
"And he had mentioned," she hyphenates, "he had some ideas and I had also had some other musical ideas hanging around. Maybe we could just improv and see how things came together, no pressure. We wrote pretty quickly and efficiently – that was initially 3 songs that turned into a body of work that we were really proud of."
The track "Paris Isn’t Paris without You" made it onto the recording along with 9 additional original songs. Each fashioned from facets of jazz, swing, bossa nova, soul, samba, bolero, R&B, and adult pop.
Bhushan asserts, "The first band I ever fronted was a Jazz, swing band and the style has always felt very natural to me, like it just feels like breathing."
"The styles that I have always felt really comfortable singing in," she revels, "come from Jazz, Blues, Soul traditions. Latin rhythms are very cool and complex and just give the songs energy."
"I know that Anthony approached each song uniquely depending on the mood we were trying to achieve," she observes. "He would come up with a progression or sonic movement that reflected that mood. He especially loves traditional rhythms, whether it’s Brazilian samba, bossa nova or Latin boleros. Each rhythm he chose really helped to establish and reinforce the moods of the song."
Working with a different set of team players has helped Bhushan to better hone her singing and songwriting talents. She discusses how this new team of musicians for I Guess We're Not Alone came on board the project.
She opens, "NY is full of musicians and had the pleasure of playing with so many. Arei Sekiguchi is our amazing drummer and percussionist. He plays with Anthony in Os Clavelitos. He also plays with Spanglish Fly and is a sideman on Broadway."
"Haruna Fukazawa," she highlights, "is a sought-after Jazz flautist, who Anthony has known for a long time and we thought she would sound gorgeous on our songs, which she did."
"Tosh Sheridan is a good friend of ours," she shares. "He was our sound engineer and co-producer. He is an excellent guitar player and musician and we have both known him from the music scene we traveled in. He also co-produced the Os Clavelitos album."
She comments, "Brad Whitely is this incredible organist, pianist, keyboard player. I met Brad many years ago and he sat in on my solo project. He’s got a great vibe and is an incredible musician. He’s played on Broadway, played with Regina Spektor and has his own Jazz projects."
"Anthony knew Jeremy Powell for a while and asked him to bring a horn section together for us," she provides. "Jeremy is a very sought after saxophonist who has been featured on a number of prominent recordings."
"The three, Jeremy, Ric, Alejandro were amazing," she lauds. Joined by Jeremy Powell on saxophone, Ric Becker on trombone, and Alejandro Berti Delgado on trumpet, Bhushan ventured outside of her comfort zone on the project.
"I had been looking for a string section," she recollects, "and had reached out to some other musicians who had used strings in the past and contacted Garry Ianco. He was really amazing to work with. He’s an experienced concert master and performer which made working with him so easy."
Rounding out the team of musicians on the recording is Will Holshouser on accordion. She admits, "I didn’t know Will Holshouser. I started searching for an accordion player, which you would think would be easy. I ended up contacting the Hot Sardines and just asked - who do you recommend, and they said: Will. He was incredible to work with and he brought that extra touch to 'Paris Isn’t Paris without You'. And I’m so grateful."
Holshouser not only added a romantic texture to "Paris Isn't Paris without You," but his accordion closes the recording. Bhushan determined, "Well, 'Paris Isn’t Paris without You' is the song that started it all. And it felt like a poetic closure to end with the melody of the song on accordion."
She alludes to the lyrics of "Paris Isn't Paris without You," narrating, "The city of light feels cold tonight, alone on the Rue De Rivoli tonight." The wispy musings of the accordion invokes this image in the listener's mind in both the song and at the closing of the album.
"I’m grateful to all the musicians who contributed to this album," she praises. "I have to say, while recording these musicians I thought - this is one of the peak moments in my life. To have an idea and have these people bring it to life is mind blowingly awesome."
The special qualities she sees in her team of musicians is reflected in the expressive and distinct qualities audiences will find in the music. One track that demonstrates very distinct qualities is "Down the Stairs."
She explains, "Anthony actually brought the song in with lyrics and melody sketched out. He wanted to actually do it in 5 and I was like - no way."
"What is interesting about 'Down the Stairs'," she articulates, "is that it was presented as a sort of folk song, dirge. We would run through it and I wanted to get into the emotion of the song because the lyrics and mood are so complex."
"When we finally brought it into the studio," she contends, "we recorded it and I said to Anthony and Tosh that I thought we needed to push the song further from a production standpoint to really make sure the intention of the song came across. I think the wailing at the end of the song was where we realized it could be developed beyond a dirge so we spent alot of time really focusing on how to bring the song to its truest potential."
"Down the Stairs" was transformed from a delicate lament to a soulful anthem that resonates with audiences, as Bhushan's soulful delivery grabs the listener by the shoulders and drives human awareness into the basin of seething emotions. Like many of the songs, this one burrows in the listener's mind.
Another inspiring track is "Amarillo," for an entirely different reason. This one reminisces about beautiful memories. She purports, "'Amarillo' came to me in a flash, I had learned about some significant passings and it really sat with me. One day, I was strumming my guitar and the song just came out. It’s one of those moments where things just come out of your mouth and you don’t know why."She remembers, "I brought it to Anthony and said - I want to build this song. So we started working on it - vocals and guitar. When we recorded we added Arei on drums. We listened back and felt it wasn’t done."
"I really wanted strings on it," she emphasizes. "Secretly, I had always thought of this as a mariachi song - it’s not written in a mariachi style rhythmically, which I know. Anthony wondered if adding Mandolin could help give it the emotional swells I wanted, which are heard throughout and give it this beautiful color. But I still wanted strings."
"We reached out to Garry Ianco, who agreed to play the strings," she reminds. "When listening to the edit, I still really wanted to just have this feeling really come through. I asked Tosh if he would isolate the vocals and the strings at the opening and we were like - that really works. It is a somewhat unorthodox way to open a song, but I felt like it really highlights the emotion."
The tweaks and finessing make "Amarillo" another track that leaves a lasting impression on the listener. Such fine-tuning and massaging made it possible for Bhushan and Lanni to come up with their project's moniker, The Beveled Edges.
She attests, "Honestly, we were bouncing off names - we weren’t sure if we were just going to call it: Shelly Bhushan and Anthony Lanni present… He threw out a couple of ideas, one about baffles and then he said, how about The Beveled Edges? And I was like - yeah, ok."
"Sure. I honestly didn’t mull over our name that much," she declares. "But as the project shaped up, there’s something about the name The Beveled Edges that seems so right - our songs are melancholy and lyrically have an edge to them, yet aesthetically beautiful and soft. So I feel like it is the perfect name for us."
The project also proved to Bhushan that she made the right choice to move to New York City instead of Los Angeles over two decades ago to pursue becoming a professional singer and songwriter. She assures, "The thing is, it never occurred to me to move to Los Angeles even though I know it really is the center of the music industry."
"But when I moved to New York," she proceeds, "it felt like you chose one of the coasts - where the talent was. I was drawn to the grit and the vibrancy of NYC, the live music scene felt real. That’s what I wanted to pursue and I happened to have found an opportunity in my first band to just move here and jump into a project I was really interested in."
She describes, "It felt real and interesting, and there was something so magical about the city that made me feel like anything was possible. I do really like LA though and not so long ago, I spent some quality time there and thought - i could live here. I even wrote a song about it - that’ll be a Shelly Bhushan song, not a Beveled Edges song."
"I love NY," she exclaims. "On basic levels, NYC is a really tough place to live, there’s no doubt. But LA is too. In terms of what it gave me - sometimes I feel like it gave me everything. I feel like I started my life when I moved to NY."
New York City is where Shelly Bhushan started her journey on becoming a solo artist. Where she discovered material to write for her first LP Picking Daisies. She reflects, "Picking Daisies was such a lifetime ago and I have grown so much as a person and artist. I feel like I’m a more confident songwriter, producer and band leader now. I feel like I can call myself an artist now - I honestly really struggled with even calling myself that for fear of sounding like a fraud."
She ascertains, "I look at music through a much higher level lens now and everything I do is for the sake of the song."
Shelly Bhushan's voyage into her profession as a singer and songwriter has encountered numerous twists and turns. Each one taking her deeper along the path to self-discovery. Recalling of legendary trumpet player Miles Davis, who is quoted as saying, "Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself." In other words, it takes a lifetime to find your voice, as it is always changing, endlessly developing, and eternally exploring and experimenting.
The journey never ends, and Shelly Bhushan has embraced this trait about her profession. Continually experimenting, looking to other musicians to help shape her creations, and she to help shape theirs. Still, she delves deeper into her profession, taking new risks, embarking on new adventures, charting new parameters, and pioneering new journeys. Sometimes heroes are right in front of us.
Visit: https://www.shellybhushan.com/music/
https://thebevelededges.com/
Comments
Post a Comment