New album has Brian Culbertson getting romantic

Jazzman Brian Culbertson is having fun these days, but he does have quite the schedule.

“It’s crazy these days,” he said. “I am in a jazz club in London for a stretch, and I get to set up and spend the days in London. Then it’s a festival in Portugal then the next day at Thornton Winery!”

His flight path is a bit crazy too.

“We go to Lisbon, then London, then Chicago and then San Diego on four different flights,” he said.

That said, he will be ready to go Saturday night at Thornton Winery as part of the 2017 Champagne Jazz Concert Series.

He also has pretty much finished his new record, “Colors of Love,” which he calls a more condensed, romantic and mellow record. He played all the instruments on the record, with the exception of the guitar.

“It’s definitely a piano melody album, 100 percent piano-driven, where I was looking for a romantic feel, kind of something to put on late at night,” he said. “It’s almost a, shall I say, ‘50s Shades of Gray’ with the piano!”

He is known for his funky tunes and energetic performances on stage, but this time he was in the romantic mood but was also thinking about the people who have bought his records for decades.

“I am thinking from a fan perspective,” he said. “I don’t want to come back playing the same thing. I need to give people a reason to listen to a record or to see me on stage. People who are into what you are doing will follow you no matter what direction you go if it is good.”

So, he knew he had to bring in someone to play the guitar.

“I’m not a guitar player so that’s the one thing I did not play on this record,” he said. “I brought it one guy.”

His musical career in a sense started when he was young, learning the piano when he was 8, drums at 9 and trombone at 10. He also had a wide range of influences that he listened to, from George Duke to David Sanborn to Chicago.

I’m a combination of musical styles,” said Culbertson. “I play jazz, pop, R&B, and, of course, funk.”

Much of that has to do with growing up in a musical household listening to a variety of genres.

“I’d listen to anything my dad put on the stereo,” he said.

He put together numerous demos using friends when he was a student at DePaul University. Eventually those songs made it onto his first record, “Long Night Out.” From there, it has been 13 Number One hits and an equal amount of Number Ones he has helped others create. Indeed, he has worked with a huge number of artists, including Stevie Wonder, Sheila E., Ray Parker Jr., Dave Koz, Boney James and Herb Alpert.

For the new record, it was mainly him in the studio playing nearly every instrument, but still using someone who has been a major part in his life.

“Yeah, I used Michelle as a soundboard,” he said. “She has great ears and has helped me produce other

“We’ve done a handful of things together, but she is more of an opera-style so it doesn’t really meld as much.”

In fact, she has been a part of the production that way for everything but his first record.

“There are a million things going on in the record,” he said. “There’s just lots of ear candy and I think it is a very modern sound, like listening to straight pop.”

Being a little bit of a perfectionist, he could easily get bogged down by the creative process, particularly since there are so many ideas that he captures.

“When you are sitting there, sitting for hours scrolling through different sounds you have put down, it helps to keep your interest up,” he said. “I get an idea, start to develop a larger different sound and then as a producer you start to weed things out.”

There is very little second guessing.

“Majority of times sometimes I will think I wish I would have put this there or that there, but most of that feeling was on the first record,” he said.

And he re-recorded that record years later as well.

“Thornton is a nice, intimate place, and since this is the entertainment business the key is to forget about life for a little bit and it’s a perfect place and kind of show, I hope,” he said. “Our job is to take people away for a few hours.”