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Royal Artist Group

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    • Blaque Dynamite
    • Bob Lanzetti
    • Brown Eyed Women
    • Chris Bullock
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    • Couch
    • Dead Floyd
    • DJ Logic
    • Ethan "Ebassman" Farmer
    • Farnell Newton (Neutron)
    • Frank Catalano
    • Funk You
    • Ghost-Note
    • Hamilton de Holanda
    • Hotei
    • Isaiah Sharkey
    • James Casey
    • Jennifer Hartswick & Nick Cassarino Duo
    • John Papa Gros
    • Jojo Mayer / Nerve
    • Jonathan Scales Fourchestra
    • Joslyn & The Sweet Compression
    • Kamani
    • Kick The Cat
    • Late Night Radio
    • lespecial
    • Lucy Woodward
    • Ludic
    • Lyrics Born
    • Marcus Machado
    • Mark Lettieri
    • Mike "Maz" Maher
    • Mike Dillon
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    • Natalie Cressman & Ian Faquini
    • New Orleans Suspects
    • Nikki Glaspie
    • OG GAT (Original Garage a Trois)
    • ORGŌNE
    • Papa Mali
    • Reed Mathis Electric Beethoven
    • Ron Artis II
    • Scott Law
    • Scott Law & Ross James' Cosmic Twang
    • Shaun Martin
    • Shira Elias
    • Sirintip
    • Skerik's Bandalabra
    • Snarky Puppy
    • STOUT
    • Sun Beard
    • Sungazer
    • The Headhunters
    • The Horn Section
    • The Nth Power
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Natalie Cressman

"Natalie Cressman Thrives in Endless, Unique Settings" 
- Stephanie Jones, Downbeat

On “Already There”, a track from Cressman and Faquini’s new album, Auburn Whisper, the duo uses the convivial but intentional sotto voce that lovers do, playing off each other’s sense of calm and closeness. Cressman’s vocal is clarion-clear but there’s a quaver in it that makes it a perfect counterpart to the warm, relaxed breathiness of her trombone. Whether in multitracked harmony or solo, her brass playing is emotive and free, occasionally tough, always tender. 
- A.D. AMOROSI, JazzTimes

"Natalie Cressman and Ian Faquini’s unusual duo album Setting Rays of Summer sounds as fresh and revivifying as a clear mountain stream." 
- Andrew Gilbert, JazzTimes

"Her veteran skills as a trombonist are clear, but what's even more impressive is her vocal performance and talents as a lyricist...If you haven't heard of Natalie Cressman, you definitely will soon." 
- Molly Fosco, Huffington Post

"Her trombone is world-class, but her singing voice is another thing entirely, an empathic entity that channels the ages. Cressman’s is a flawless act that can only get better with time and age. Yep, I smell a Grammy — someday." 
- Dave Good, San Diego Reader

"A voice that can conquer pop, jazz, the jam world or whatever she decides to pursue next."  
- Shawn Donohue, Glide Magazine

"Though her singing style comes out of the tradition of vocal jazz, a contemporary feel seeps through the new record....Her parents’ connections created some unusual opportunities for Natalie, but these didn’t just result in on-off appearances for the sake of experience and resume building. When she subbed for regular trombonist Josh Roseman in Apfelbaum’s big band, the impressed leader kept her on even after Roseman returned. Jeff first suggested his daughter for the open chair in Anastasio’s group, but this earned her only an impromptu audition — which she promptly crushed."
- Jeremy D. Goodwin, Boston Globe

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• Currently has over over 24,900 followers on Instagram and over 18,000 followers on Facebook

• 2019 - DownBeat Rising Star - WINNER – Trombone: Natalie Cressman

Possessing a voice as cool and crystalline as an Alpine stream, Natalie Cressman is a rising singer/songwriter and trombonist who draws inspiration from a vast array of deep and powerful musical currents. She released her 5th album in April 2019, this time in collaboration with Brazilian composer, guitarist and vocalist Ian Faquini. Drawing from impressionism, jazz, and the great Brazilian songwriting tradition, Setting Rays of Summer is a ten-track collection of original material featuring compositions in three different languages: Portuguese, English and French. With the warm instrumentation of acoustic guitar and trombone alongside two-part vocal harmonies hugging the Brazilian-accented Portuguese, Cressman & Faquini weave their musical voices together to create a fully orchestrated sound befitting a much larger ensemble. 

Steadily evolving in many directions, the 27-year-old Cressman has already put down deep roots in several overlapping scenes. A prodigiously talented New York City-based trombonist, she’s spent the past nine years touring the jam band circuit as a horn player and vocalist with Phish's Trey Anastasio. Deeply versed in Latin jazz, post-bop, pop, and Brazilian music, she tapped the interlaced traditions on her first two solo albums, 2012’s Unfolding and 2014’s Turn the Sea. 

She released The Traces EP in 2017, revealing her latest evolution, as she expands her creative reach into post-production with meticulously crafted soundscaped tracks inspired by R&B singer / songwriter Emily King, the Prince-championed vocal trio KING, and particularly Australian avant-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote. The Traces EP follows on the heels of 2016’s Etchings in Amber, a gorgeous duo album with guitarist Mike Bono that introduced Cressman as a formidable musical force without her horn. While the project focuses on songs featuring lyrics she wrote for several Bono compositions, Cressman also wrote words and music for three songs, contributing to the atmospheric suite of jazz-inflected, genre-bending tunes.

When she’s not performing her own music, Cressman can be found collaborating with some of the most illustrious figures in rock, funk, jazz and beyond, which have included Carlos Santana, Aaron Neville, Dave Matthews, Phish, Big Gigantic, Escort, Wycliffe Gordon, Nicholas Payton, Anat Cohen, The Motet, and Umphrey's McGee. Her passion for groove music hasn’t diluted her love of jazz. In 2016 SFJAZZ commissioned her to develop music for a concert celebrating the legacy of jazz trombonist/arranger Melba Liston. She also continues her long-standing musical relationship with world jazz innovator Peter Apfelbaum, performing with his band Sparkler. A fellow Bay Area native, Apfelbaum has hired Cressman since she was a young teen, a relationship that exemplifies the creative hothouse in which she was raised.

Her mother, Sandy Cressman, is a jazz vocalist who immersed herself deeply into the traditions of Brazilian music, collaborating with many of Brazil’s most respected musicians. Her father, Jeff Cressman, is a recording engineer and trombonist who recently concluded a two-decade run with Santana. Natalie quite naturally began studying trombone with her father, but set out to be a dancer rather than a musician. An aspiring ballet dancer until her junior year of high school, she changed courses when an injury sidelined her dance aspirations. Her parents provided entrée to a number of enviable opportunities, but Cressman's own prodigious gifts continued to merit her presence in any number of high-profile settings. She soon found herself playing salsa with Uruguayan percussionist Edgardo Cambon e Orquesta Candela, Latin jazz with Pete Escovedo's Latin Jazz Orchestra, world music with Jai Uttal and the Pagan Love Orchestra, and globally-inspired avant-garde jazz with multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum, a close family friend.

Cressman traveled east in 2009 to study at the Manhattan School of Music, and the following year jam band pioneer Trey Anastasio recruited her for his touring band. He met Cressman at 18, and “was instantly floored by how melodically and naturally she played and sang,”  Anastasio says. “Natalie is the rarest of musicians. Born into a musical family and raised in a home filled with the sounds of Brazilian music, jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms, musicality is in her DNA."  Her far flung musical passions continue to bear new fruit, as her identity as a horn player and a singer/songwriter evolve in different directions. Playing funk trombone in arenas and cavernous theaters has required developing an aggressive new vocabulary of shouts, growls, smears and yelps, a la the JB Horns’ Fred Wesley. Her vocal work in increasingly intimate and rhythmically insinuating settings has revealed an artist who can thrive in any setting, from raucous, reverberant halls to packed and pulsing lofts and nightclubs. In an epoch marked by infinite musical possibilities, Natalie Cressman is a singular force who draws from an improbable breadth of sonic realms. 

www.nataliecressman.com

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