Trumpeter Rick Braun and saxophonist Richard Elliot have been partners for a few years in their label venture, ARTizen Entertainment. Now the smooth jazz instrumentalists are partnered on a new CD, aptly titled R'n'R. The new CD was released Tuesday (August 28th) and features the title track first single.

The duo have toured together for years and have made numerous guest appearances on each other's CDs, but the new CD represents the first time that Braun and Elliot decided to go into the studio together and see what happened. "Richard played sax and I had a trumpet or flugelhorn as we came up with melodies spontaneously," said Braun. "What you hear on the finished album are a lot of first takes. That's rare. We let the songs develop and be inspired one hundred percent from the interaction between us."

R'n'R follows Braun's 2006 solo set Truly Yours. Braun enjoys collaborating with other artists: He participated in the ensemble BWB with Kirk Whalum and Norman Brown, which released Groovin' in 2002, and had a hit pairing with Boney James for the 2000 set Shake It Up.

Pennsylvania-born Braun studied at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Looking back on his early years, he says that school is where his love of jazz developed: "I think I really discovered music when I went to college. I grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and there wasn't a lot of great jazz readily available. It wasn't like growing up in New York City or a big city. I was not exposed to people like Miles Davis or Clifford Brown or Chet Baker or any of these people until college. And this music made such an impact on me at that time that I couldn't get enough of it."

Braun will perform Friday (August 31st), at the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach, California.


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