Postmodern Jukebox

Scott Bradlee’s roaring collective breaks genre barriers, by transforming and repurposing today’s hits, to take the “gone” out of bygone.

- Tess Adamakos

In a world of auto tunes and face filters, Postmodern Jukebox offers a subculture for vintage enthusiasts.

“People have a natural nostalgia for other times and a natural curiosity of what it would be like to live there,” Scott Bradlee said. Postmodern Jukebox answers this, and transports you to an “alternate vintage universe.”

Scott Bradlee, pianist and Postmodern Jukebox arranger, grew up in New Jersey with a jazz background. While Bradlee enjoyed music as a kid, he didn’t like to practice, and said he wasn’t good when he started. Then, once he heard George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” everything changed.

“I was so enamored with that sound. I didn’t know you could play like that,” Bradlee said. “I was used to scales.”

The inspiration for Postmodern Jukebox started as a throw-away hobby. While Bradlee liked Ragtime, Jazz and Motown, his friends were listening to Sublime and gangster rap.

“I played them what they liked in the ragtime style, as more of a party trick,” he said.

Then, out of college, Bradlee assembled project bands that played rock and jazz, but realized he was just, “trying to fit into slots.”

“I was trying to fit into a box, instead of creating my own,” Bradlee said. “PMJ is the first time I did something authentically me.”

Sunny Holiday, burlesque performer and singer in New York City, moved to LA, where she eventually joined Postmodern Jukebox as a fan.

“It was like fate, I moved to LA and went to their first show at the Hyde Lounge,” Holiday said. “I got to meet Scott and the band after the show, and told them I wanted to get involved.”

Scott told Holiday to send him some of her work, “and the rest was history.”