Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Bandleader Brian Newman on his swinging late-night NoMad Las Vegas show

Brian Newman

Courtesy

Brian Newman has been creating a vibe in Vegas at NoMad at Park MGM.

Sun on the Strip

Brian Newman

Brock chats with musician, bandleader and late-night Vegas headliner Brian Newman.

With his rockabilly looks and jazz pedigree, Brian Newman is a bit of a throwback. His style and musical versatility have proven to be an ideal fit for the Las Vegas Strip, where late-night entertainment has been trending toward its vintage roots. Newman is a big part of that push.

“The formula for that show has been around for like 150 years, and we’ve been doing it in some form for the past 20 years or so in New York,” Newman says on the latest episode of the Sun on the Strip podcast. “To be able to go to Las Vegas and do the show that we wanted to do from the beginning with everything we wanted, the showgirls, the burlesque, the jazz, the special guests, it’s another level from what we could do in New York.

“Another way it’s progressed is the genres of music we’re touching on. It’s not just jazz anymore, there are Nirvana songs and [music from] Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen, not just Cole Porter and [jazz standards]. There are all these different genres we can build off of to make the show accessible for everyone.”

“Brian Newman After Dark” opened in May 2019 at the NoMad Restaurant at Park MGM, something of a smaller-scale spinoff of Lady Gaga’s “Jazz & Piano” residency show at nearby Park Theater. Newman is Gaga’s bandleader for that stripped-down performance, and after he finishes in the big room, “After Dark” takes over in the luxurious and intimate NoMad space.

Gaga has famously dropped in to perform there for a few hundred people, boosting the buzz for the show and the venue. But Newman gets a big kick out of the other guest performers, some locals and some Vegas visitors.

“It’s been a dream come true,” he says. “The level of talent in Vegas is unsurpassed. I love being surrounded by that many great players and musicians and singers and it really opens it up for us. To me, that’s what music is all about, the camaraderie and making music together with new people we haven’t played with before, or heroes of ours we have the honor of playing with at this show.”

Listen to this and more on the Sun on the Strip, also available at Apple Podcasts.