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Jim Brickman warms up a cold winter night

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Jim Brickman brings his show to the Paramount Theatre on Saturday night (photo courtesy of Facebook)

Christmas will be in the air when Jim Brickman brings his show to the Paramount Theatre on Saturday night (12/22/12). But so will a nod to Valentine’s Day, nestled among the romantic piano man’s multi-platinum hits for all seasons, embellishing his “On A Winter’s Night” tour.

“My Christmas shows have never been all-Christmas,” he says by phone from New York City, where he was taping his weekly radio show. “I feel like at a certain time of year, where you’re seeing so much of the same things over and over, it’s important to bring a fresh approach to what we do, so it’s a really nice combination of a lot of the hits.

“I still play all of the hit songs, like ‘Valentine’ and ‘The Gift’ and ‘Love of My Life’ and ‘Never Alone,’ and of course I now have Christmas songs of my own that have become popular, so we do those. But it is not ‘Deck the Halls’ from front to back,” Brickman says.

He’s bringing along his longtime friend and vocal collaborator Anne Cochran; Luke McMaster, who sings the bouncy “Good Morning Beautiful” off Brickman’s new “Believe” album, released in November; and electric violinist Tracy Silverman.

“Because there’s no band, the concert lends itself to being more about the personalities and the talent and less about the lights or the gimmicks. It’s not meant to be a spectacular,” he says. “It’s more of an escape and an emotional kind of experience.”

He’s expecting an especially emotional experience when he returns to the renovated Paramount in downtown Cedar Rapids, where he last played in February 2004. He’s well aware of the Floods of 2008 that devastated the building.

“We’ve been wanting to come back for so long, so I really have been waiting patiently for this to happen,” he says. “I’m just excited to come back there, because it’s been so long. I feel like this is the best date on the tour, because it’s a Saturday night and it’s the Saturday night right before Christmas. When I saw this and the reopening, I felt like there was a really great celebration tone to the whole thing. It’s a special date to me, and I just really want everybody to come.”

He hopes to communicate the always-positive message of his music to his audiences.

“With all the chaos in the world, and especially at the holiday time, I hope that it’s an escape, a time to reflect, a chance to relax and take a breath. That’s what my music has always provided,” he says. “It’s hopeful, it’s positive, it’s romantic and a lot of things that are missing in the world of music today.”

The details

Known for his lush, sweeping arrangements of iconic carols and holiday songs, he gets to live Christmas all year-round.

“I never really stop writing or recording for the holidays,” he says, since he often has a Christmas CD or television special in the works. And even though he didn’t record that type of album this past summer, “Good Morning Beautiful” does have a “Merry Christmas Beautiful” version.

Brickman, 51, who has been playing with rhythms and piano since age 5, has his own approach to arranging carols.

“I never read anything from a book,” he says, “so that it does have an authentic quality as to how I would play it. My style is really sort of a pop playing style. One of the things that is more of a technical thing … if you straighten some of these things out that are in three-quarter time and make them in 4/4 time, they become different.  I love three-quarter time, but if  I play it exactly as written, there’s no reason to listen to me do it versus someone else.

“I don’t actually sit and craft the arrangements. I play it just the way that I feel like I want to play it, and that usually ends up being the way (it stays). I don’t write anything down, I don’t say ‘this is the form.’  As soon as I do that, I lose the emotional connection.”

He likes the authenticity of the first take, especially in recording for television or radio.

“When you keep working, you keep doing something, then it becomes about technique more than emotion. You can’t infuse the emotion into something you’ve played a hundred times on a recording. When it’s live, it’s different because the audience gives you the energy to perform it in a different way. I never play the same way twice, hardly ever. Every day it’s different, but not so different that you don’t recognize it,” he says with a laugh.

A family-oriented guy — he moved from Los Angeles back to his native Cleveland about a year and a half ago to be near loved ones — he doesn’t mind touring so close to Christmas.

“I’m very used to being on the road at the holidays,” he says. “I’ve made the tour a very family-type environment, so don’t feel like I’m away. Somebody like Anne — she and I have toured for so long — we’ve been friends since high school. It feels to me like the family is together in a way.

“The other thing about touring at the holiday time is that I actually see more of my friends and relatives then, than I would if I just lived somewhere all the time,” he says.

“Because we go so many places, it invites a very familial type of environment. My mom can come out more often, my dad comes out and a lot of my friends, so every day feels like a celebration of some kind.”

Rockin’ Christmas

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UPDATED to correct ticket prices

After the year she’s had, Wynonna is ready to rock out her Christmas.

The country superstar and her band, The Big Noise, are set to tear up the Riverside Casino Event Center with two shows Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, (12/8 and 12/9) showcasing the best from the past, present and future of her stellar, award-winning country career.

The details

Her husband will be at her side — which is nothing short of a miracle.

Married in June to her drummer, Michael “Cactus” Moser, 55, Wynonna, 48, watched in horror two months later when his motorcycle collided with a car near Hill City, S.D., shattering his hand and severing his left leg. They were traveling on separate motorcycles through the scenic Black Hills region Aug. 18, on their way back to a scheduled show in Deadwood.

“I watched him slam into a car at 65 miles per hour,” she says. “I just promised myself from that day on that I will never take this for granted ever again.”

About six months ahead of schedule in his recovery and rehab, he joined her onstage for the first time Nov. 27 in Regina, Canada.

“A month ago he was unable to touch his fingers to his palm,” she says by phone from her tour bus the next day, en route to a sold-out show in Winnipeg.

“He had eight pins in his hand, so for him to be playing drums, are you kidding me? I’m even astounded. I can actually admit I’m surprised,” she says, “because I knew that he was determined, I just didn’t know that he would be showing up.

“Yesterday I kept staring at him on the bus, like, ‘Oh my God, you’re really here. We’re really doing this.’ It was very surreal, watching him and thinking, ‘He’s the Duke, man.’ He is rub some dirt on it and get back into the game. He’s so on fire. He is a champion and it’s wonderful to be in his presence,” she says.

“He’s getting so much attention, that it’s actually healing him. It’s like light therapy. He’s getting so fed on that stage, it’s life-giving for him. It’s making him recover even better. He’s sleeping a little bit more, because he’s tired, but he’s so awake, so aware and so ready to go an hour before showtime, I can’t even be around him. He’s got more energy than I do.

“But he’s just so grateful. … He is just as happy and joyful to be anywhere,” she says. “To be around that is so good for me, because he’s just my light. I call him Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, because he’s always smiling and always just aware — keenly aware — of the fact that he’s alive. No brain injury, no internal injury. Sixty-five miles an hour into a car, on a Harley, chances are not usually very good. I saw his leg laying all around on the highway and I thought, ‘OK, this is it.’ I thought he was dead. I didn’t know that he was alive. To go from that Aug. 18 to being on the road three months later is just incomprehensible, really.

“We’re a very, very grateful bunch. So when you see us, if you’re in a bad mood, don’t come. Actually, you should come, because if you are, we’ll give you an attitude adjustment.”

The last time we saw Wynonna in the Corridor, she was playing sold-out concerts in 1992 in Cedar Rapids and 1993 in Iowa City.

She says she’s blossomed since those early days, stepping into the solo spotlight after her mother, Naomi Judd, was diagnosed with hepatitis C and retired in 1991. Naomi recovered, and mother and daughter — who won five Grammys as The Judds — have teamed up a couple times since then, but now the supremely talented Wynonna is confident and comfortable in her own right.

“I have nothing to lose,” she says. “I go home and my kids could give a rip about how fabulous I am, so when I go out there, I give it everything I’ve got.”

She calls it her “playtime.”

“When I’m there, I am so full of myself, and you just get to watch me absolutely wind ‘er up and let ‘er go,” she says. “Last night my road manager said, ‘You’ve been onstage for like, 90 minutes and the contract only called for 75.’ I don’t care — I’m having so much fun. You can’t get rid of me.

“I have such joy, such a story to tell when I’m onstage, I hope that people, when they leave, they feel better than when they got there. That’s my goal.”

She actually lives a double life, which gives her balance and perspective.

“I’ll go anywhere people love me,” she says. “I will do anything for attention, because at home, my teenagers have forgotten how famous I am. I will pretty much do anything — and have — for that two hours of playtime on stage.”

At home, the Kentucky native lives on a farm near Nashville, which she shares with her sister, actress Ashley Judd, and their mother.

“We call it the Kentucky compound, because it’s kinda like the Judd State Park. We have a lake and I’ve got close to 50 animals,” including six horses.

“I live two very uniquely different lives,” she says. “On the road, it’s all about sparkles and hair products and Spanx and being a diva. At home, it’s about getting as close to the earth and being a mom.”

Her son, Elijah, is setting off for college shortly before he turns 18 on Dec. 23. Daughter Grace is 16, and still likes to travel with Mom.

“I was sitting on the floor the other day with my eight kittens, in a state of bliss, because I thought, right here, right now, in this moment, I am sitting here with these animals that remind me of the miracle of life. They give me a perspective.

“When you’re out on the road, you’re in this world of fantasy, very much in a vacuum. You are on a tour bus that’s over a million dollars. It’s got a shower and a king-size bed. … I feel like a princess. I feel like I’ve won the lottery when I’m out here. Then I go home and I’m in the kitchen, making dinner to put on the table at 6 o’clock so we can all sit down. …

“I just get such a sense of how unique my life is, because I live such different lives both on the road and off.”

She says performing for her fans brings life to her art, and having “been to the wilderness,” her time at home — whether she’s drinking a beer on the back porch or crying in the gazebo where she was married this summer — reminds her “just how grand God’s creation is.”

“Then I pack my stuff, get on the bus and I’m a diva in training. I’ve been training since I was 18 to be the best that I can be and strive for excellence — not success — but to just get out there and show other people if I can do it, so can you. You’ve just got to suit up and show up and expect a miracle.”

Jazzing up the holidays

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Dianne Reevesa will perform at Hancher in Riverside on Dec. 7

After spending her fall touring Europe and Turkey, Dianne Reeves is happy to be home for the holidays — even if she won’t be home for long.

After a short hop around the United States for three Christmas concerts — including a Hancher stop in Riverside on Dec. 7 — she’ll head into the recording studio in Boston. Then it’s off to Australia for three shows in January before heading back to the States, then off to Switzerland and back for another U.S. tour.

No wonder she relishes her down time amid all that zigzagging.

“I enjoy it, but I always feel it when I come home,” Reeves, 56, says by phone from her home in Denver, surrounded by the majestic Rocky Mountains. “I live in the city, but I see them every single day when I get up. I love them. People always ask me, ‘Where do you go on vacation?’ I travel so much, I come home.

“Denver is a very beautiful city,” she says. “I like to walk and I like to go up to the mountains. I like to cook — I’m really good — and there’s a very organic culture here for food. I’ve been working with a couple of friends who are chefs, to learn really good, organic cooking.”

But caroling season is upon us, and the jazz diva will be doing what she does best — dishing up her great, organic takes on familiar holiday songs. A liberal sprinkling of scat singing turns up the heat on “Let It Snow,” syncopation moves “The Little Drummer Boy” to a very hip beat and sparkling piano weaves nostalgia through the title track of her 2004 album, “Christmas Time is Here.”

She’ll share plenty of those tunes with her Hancher audience, but also add in some of her new music, some of her favorite vintage tunes and “lots of stories,” she says.

The details

The four-time Grammy winner has performed several Hancher concerts before the Floods of 2008, and is eager to return to Eastern Iowa. She remembers those concert experiences as being “really cool.”

“There’s a lot of jazz people and lovers of the music right here in the middle of the United States. I love that,” she says.

She’ll be bringing her band along for the ride, with piano, bass, drums and guitar, ready for anything. That’s what she likes best about performing live.

“It’s the interaction with the people and the edge that it puts me and my band on,” she says. “While we’ve played this music from night to night, it’s always different, and I love that. Every day inspires what will be played that evening.

“We get out there, and it’s an intimate exchange with the members, and we invite the audience to be part of that — and when that happens, my goodness, you can sing all night.”

Born in Detroit and raised in Denver, Reeves has been singing all her days. It’s in her DNA. Her father, who died when she was just 2, was a singer. Her uncle, Charles Burrell, played bass with the Denver Symphony and turned her onto jazz. Other relatives work in the music industry, as well, and helped guide her through her early days in Los Angeles.

Long before that, she knew music would be her profession.

It happened in junior high.

“I thought, this is what I want to do. I like it, I like it,” she says. “I like how it feels. Having had the opportunity to work with my uncle, who was really, really instrumental in helping me get out there, working with him was really great. And I loved it. I loved the feeling. I liked jazz because it was a kind of freedom. I couldn’t say that then, but that’s what attracted me to the music.”

Today, music is her sanctuary.

“It’s like a prayer,” she says. “It’s not from my mind, it’s from my heart. It just comes right from there, out of my mouth. You feel lifted. I always tell people the stage is my sacred place. I’m totally different on stage than I am walking around in my life. I feel a kind of connection to something greater than myself.”

After a year at the University of Colorado, she left for California to embark on her career, finding work as a studio and sessions singer.

“I love that I was 19 years old and I had a plan,” she says. “I felt good. Didn’t know what I ultimately wanted to do, but knew what I didn’t want to do. It was a good start.

“I just wanted to be able to be respected for the music that I was singing. I was very selective,” she says. “I understood even then the power of words, so I was very selective in the lyrics that I would sing, and the kind of music that I wanted to sing. I loved the sophistication of jazz music at that time.

“I love all kinds of music, but there’s something about being able to be in an environment where people have these intimate conversations through music that are soulful and intellectual. I knew that’s what I wanted. I knew that the people that were a part of the music, no matter how old they were, always felt young and that they had been able to do their heart’s desire for as long as they lived.”

Touring with Harry Belafonte in the ‘80s changed her life.

“Up to that point, it was strictly jazz music,” she says. “The music was becoming extremely complex, and when I worked with Harry Belafonte, he sings folk songs from all over the world. He is very much part of the struggle of people, and it was through him that I really learned how to deliver a lyric, that simple ‘less is really more.’ I started to enjoy playing the space of music way beyond the notes that I was caught in before. Then I learned how to place the notes and I realized you have more notes to place if you take the time, at any given time.

“It was through that experience that I really learned how to deliver lyrics and even more so, the importance of words.”