Julie Benko

Euphonic Gumbo 
Release Date: February 20, 2025
Label: Club44 Records

Julie Benko — the singer and actor who rose to national prominence in Broadway’s Funny Girl and who will return to the Great White Way this January in the critically acclaimed revival of Ragtime — is proud to announce Euphonic Gumbo, a vibrant new album steeped in the musical and cultural histories of New Orleans, featuring her seven-piece band musically directed by her pianist-arranger spouse, Jason Yeager. The project brings to life the exuberant spirit of the duo’s annual Mardi Gras concerts at Birdland, where their Big Easy-inspired celebrations have become a beloved winter tradition.

Benko’s rise as a vocalist and actor garnered national attention, her stint in Funny Girl earning her nods as the 2022 “Breakout Star for Theater” by The New York Times and one of Variety’s “10 Broadway Stars to Watch” for 2023, as well as profiles in Variety, Time, CBS Mornings, and many others. Yeager’s work as a pianist, arranger, and composer has been featured on the stages of Carnegie Hall, Birdland, and Smalls, and covered in such outlets as The New York Times, DownBeat, JazzTimes, and The Boston Globe, affirming his stature as an inventive and versatile voice in contemporary jazz.

With Club44 Records, the married duo previously released Christmas With You and Hand in Hand. These warmly received albums showcased their intuitive musical rapport and laid the groundwork for the broader palette they explore in Euphonic Gumbo. Together, they bridge Broadway and jazz with a shared commitment to storytelling, improvisation, and craft.

“The first time Jason and I visited New Orleans, we fell wildly in love with the place,” Benko recalls. “The history, the architecture, the food — oh, the food! — the parades, the languages, and the way music is celebrated on every street corner… it was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.”

Developed over several years of Mardi Gras–themed performances, Euphonic Gumbo grew from that first experience, where Benko and Yeager immersed themselves in the Crescent City’s parades, street bands, Storyville lore, and the sensation of music erupting everywhere. What began as an intimate duo set in 2022 soon expanded into a full-band Birdland spectacle: beads tossed to the crowd, a second-line parade through the club, and homemade king cake carried from table to table. “We want people listening to the record to feel like they’re with us at our annual Mardi Gras celebration at Birdland,” Benko adds. Each year’s show expanded their repertoire, ultimately forming the core of the album.

The album’s title comes from Benko’s original play Down the Line, set in Storyville, New Orleans’ former red-light district. In it, legendary pianist Tony Jackson describes his own “jasmine” music as “euphonic gumbo,” a musical stew that “simmers slow and builds to something rich and complex, but still goes down easy.”

The phrase struck Yeager immediately. “She wrote it as a phrase in a monologue, but I realized she’d accidentally come up with an incredible band name.” Euphonic Gumbo became even more for the duo, providing the project’s conceptual anchor. As Benko notes, gumbo blends many essential ingredients; in jazz, the roux becomes African syncopation, the meat becomes the blues, and the spices include Spanish tresillo, Cajun fiddle, Army-band horns, ragtime, and the jasmine perfume worn by Storyville’s working women. Euphonic Gumbo is their musical version of that stew: a blend of traditions unified by the warmth and soul of New Orleans.

Musically, Euphonic Gumbo is grounded in Yeager’s imaginative arranging and the ensemble’s wide stylistic reach. Nearly everything was recorded live in the studio, preserving the spontaneity of their Birdland performances. The band moves fluidly between hot-jazz polyphony, second-line grooves, New Orleans R&B, Cajun folk, early jazz, and medleys that weave related tunes into narrative arcs. Benko draws on her full vocal breadth — from brassy power to delicate folk phrasing — shaping each song with theatrical clarity and emotional immediacy.

“When I’m crafting the arrangements, I want them to sound unique and definitive, while still honoring the tradition,” says Yeager. “I love playing with texture and color — what happens if the rhythm section drops out? Or if a collective improvisation suddenly morphs into a written contrapuntal section?”

Tap dancer John Manzari — Benko’s castmate in Funny Girl — makes a stunning rhythmic and vocal contribution on the album, creating exuberant dialogue with drummer Jay Sawyer on “St. James Infirmary,” reimagined here in 7/8 time. On “J’ai Passé Devant Ta Porte,” Yeager builds a porch-band atmosphere using remote overdubs of violin, banjo, guitar, and accordion, creating an intimate Cajun tableau.

“We started with just voice, bass, and accordion, and Justin Poindexter and Gabe Terracciano sent us improvised string parts,” Yeager explains. “I edited and mixed their overdubs so it felt like friends gradually joining in on a porch jam session.” Across the album, the ensemble plays with a mix of precision and abandon that evokes the communal energy of a New Orleans street celebration.

The tracklist functions as a sweeping tour through New Orleans’ musical landscape.
“Down in New Orleans Medley” — a Birdland show opener — begins with host Jim Caruso introducing the band before launching into a promenade from Bourbon Street to the Mardi Gras parade to Basin Street, the historic edge of Storyville. “Ticklin’ Time (Let the Good Times Roll/Tipitina)” honors Dr. John and Professor Longhair, the great “professors” of New Orleans piano tradition.

“The Lakes of Pontchartrain,” a 19th-century folk ballad, becomes a lyrical centerpiece through Benko’s intimate narration and Yeager’s horn writing. “Funky Fête (Iko Iko/Tootie Ma Is a Big Fine Thing)” captures the vibrant spirit of Mardi Gras Indians, with tapdancer Manzari and drummer Sawyer trading rhythmic sparks.“Ma Belle Evangeline” merges Randy Newman’s ballad from The Princess and the Frog with Longfellow’s epic poem Evangeline, threading together the Acadian expulsion and Cajun lore. “Pretty Baby,” written by Storyville legend Tony Jackson, becomes a personal dedication to Benko and Yeager’s one-year-old daughter.

“Don’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey!” updates the public-domain standard with subtly revised lyrics that reframe its narrative for modern sensibilities. “St. James Infirmary” unfolds as a dramatic, multi-section narrative, opening with a Chopin funeral-march trumpet line and expanding into shifting tempos and timbres.“J’ai Passé Devant Ta Porte,” drawn from Cajun tradition, offers a vignette of love and loss. The album closes with “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” recorded live at Benko and Yeager’s 2025 Birdland Mardi Gras show — a fitting encore in which Caruso gets the final word.

The ensemble on Euphonic Gumbo brings depth and vitality to the project. Yeager (piano, organ, celeste) leads a rhythm section of Michael O’Brien (bass) and Jay Sawyer (drums). The horn section — Ron Wilkins (trombone), Andy Warren (trumpet), and Linus Wyrsch (clarinet) — moves seamlessly between hot-jazz polyphony and R&B horn lines. Sasha Papernik (accordion), Justin Poindexter (strings/banjo), and Gabe Terracciano (violin) contribute essential textures rooted in Cajun and Creole traditions. Tap artist John Manzari adds a rare and dynamic percussive dimension.

For Benko, Euphonic Gumbo is the culmination of years of artistic exploration — of New Orleans history, her storytelling voice, and her evolving musical identity. “I hope everyone listening feels like they’ve joined us at our Mardi Gras concert — and that they have a little bit of New Orleans they can take with them anywhere,” she says. For Yeager, it is a chance to honor tradition while reimagining it with fresh structures, vivid colors, and theatrical vitality. Together, they offer an album that captures the revelry, romance, and resilience that define New Orleans — a musical invitation to carry that spirit anywhere.

Euphonic Gumbo arrives February 20 on Club44 Records. The release show will take place at Birdland on February 16, where Benko, Yeager, and their ensemble will once again bring Mardi Gras to Midtown. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Introducing Julie Benko
Release Date: October 20, 2017

Joining Benko on her 11-track debut "Introducing Julie Benko" is co-producer, arranger, and frequent musical partner Jason Yeager on piano, Danny Weller on bass, and Jay Sawyer on drums. The album also features trumpeter Andy Warren, clarinetist Dan Levinson, trombonist Walter Harris, tenor saxophonist Andrew Mulherkar, guitarist Vinny Raniolo, violinist Jason Anick, bandoneónist JP Jofre, and cellist Alon Bisk. “Introducing Julie Benko” demonstrates that the young vocalist, composer, and producer offers many musical riches in the jazz idiom and beyond, in addition to her prowess as a Broadway performer. 

When Julie Benko ambled into a Starbucks café in New York City’s Herald Square and struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to her, she could never have anticipated the collaborations both personal and musical that would follow. The man was jazz pianist/composer and Berklee College of Music faculty member Jason Yeager, and the two began to make music together. After informal sessions of Great American Songbook standards and Joni Mitchell gems, the two artists developed their own duo cabaret act entitled “Blame It On Our Youth,” performed in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Their professional collaboration evolved into a personal romance. Now, coming full circle, they have teamed up to record Ms. Benko’s debut jazz album.

As a child, Ms. Benko would watch classic movie-musicals with her mother and listen to the music of Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz greats with her father. An accomplished singer and actress, Ms. Benko explores the cross-section of these two early influences: jazz and musical theater.  Specifically, she is fascinated by songs from the musical theater canon that did not manage to make the elusive “crossover” leap into jazz. Thus, Ms. Benko performs a swinging “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” from Fiddler on the Roof (in which Ms. Benko recently appeared on Broadway), featuring Dan Levinson on a klezmer-style clarinet. She also explores two songs from Johnny Mercer’s movie-musical Seven Brides For Seven Brothers — “Lonesome Polecat” and “Wonderful, Wonderful Day” get dramatically and excitingly reinterpreted.

The jazz standards included on Ms. Benko’s album have received impressive and lively arrangements by Mr. Yeager.  “Love For Sale,” performed as a melancholy tango and featuring Jason Anick on violin and JP Jofre on bandoneón, evocatively captures the cynicism and sadness of the world’s oldest profession.  “I Love Paris” utilizes the exuberant and contrapuntal New Orleans-style three-horn front line (featuring standout performances by guitarist Vinny Raniolo, trumpeter Andy Warren, trombonist Walter Harris, and clarinetist Dan Levinson) to express the joy of love.  “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” gets a bossa nova treatment—with sublime saxophone commentary from Andrew Mulherkar—to express the wistfulness of the lyric. Fred Hersch’s contemporary art song “A Wish” features an intimate trio arrangement with voice, piano, and cello (lyrically delivered by Alon Bisk). Ms. Benko also covers the folk-rock classic “Leaving On a Jet Plane” in an introspective, contemporary jazz setting, accompanied by the album’s stalwart rhythm section of Mr. Yeager on piano, Danny Weller on bass, and Jay Sawyer on drums. This John Denver classic reminds her of the many times she has left loved ones at home in order to pursue her passion of performing.

Benko’s original compositions, which emerge from the tradition of the Great American Songbook, are often responses to current events. She wrote “Tomorrow Is A Day For You” as a celebration following the US Supreme Court decisions defending same-sex marriage, and “Here We Go Again” was a response to the troubling and seemingly endless political campaigns of 2016. On the other hand, the poignant album-closer, “Always”, which is fittingly performed as a cozy duo with Mr. Yeager, is a love song written soon after the two became a couple.

With the help of her co-producer and partner Jason Yeager and the impressive line-up heard on this debut release, Julie Benko emerges as a diverse and innovative jazz and musical theater vocalist, composer, and producer.