WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2023 • 6 PM & 8:30 PM

DAVINA AND THE VAGABONDS

“Davina Sowers creates her own Americana mishmash — a little Amy Winehouse-worthy neo-soul here, a little Great American Songbook-influenced songcraft there.”

– Rolling Stone Magazine

The incomparable Davina returns to The JAI for two fun holiday-themed shows like no other! Davina and the Vagabonds have created a stir on the national music scene with their high-energy live shows, top musicianship, sharp-dressed professionalism, and Sowers’ commanding stage presence. You’ll have a blast singing along with Davina to your holiday favorites.

Davina Sowers and the Vagabonds have created a stir on the national music scene with their high-energy live shows, level A musicianship, sharp-dressed professionalism, and Sowers’ commanding stage presence. With influences ranging from Fats Domino and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to Aretha Franklin and Tom Waits, the band is converting audiences one show at a time, from Vancouver to Miami and across Europe. In 2011 Davina released her first full length, all-original album, Black Cloud. It was named one of the 10 best releases of the year by the Minneapolis Star & Tribune and awarded 4 ½ stars from Downbeat Magazine. Her next release, in 2014, Sunshine, hit number 13 on the Billboard Blues Chart and led the band to landing a performance on the hit BBC2 show Later with Jools Holland.

Davina and the Vagabonds’ shows are filled with New Orleans charm, Memphis soul swagger, dark theatrical moments that evoke Kurt Weill, and tender gospel passages. Davina’s voice and stage presence defy category in a different way. Davina has been compared to Etta James, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday and Betty Boop, but comparisons don’t suffice: she is a true original.

Bringing you 100 years of American music and Davina’s originals, which lend themselves to the American Songbook, the band brings edgy nostalgia to older generations and fresh new music to younger ears. This rollicking quintet is held together by Sowers’ keyboard playing, with acoustic bass, drums, and a spicy trumpet and trombone horn section. The group’s focused, clean sound and emphasis on acoustic instruments is novel to both blues and jazz worlds, and sets the show closer to New Orleans than to Chicago. This has set the Vagabonds apart at festivals in Thunder Bay, Ontario; Sighisoara, Romania; Sierre, Switzerland; Kemi, Finland; the 2012 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and 2013 Monterey Jazz Festival; Vache de Blues in France, and the North Sea Jazz Festival.

The JAI

Cabaret Vibes! This performance is held in The JAI, our intimate concert space where one can enjoy wine, cocktails, table-service, and more.