Sari Brown joined the Earthwork Music label in 2004 at the age of 17 with the release of her first album, “For What is the Journey,” a collection of 11 unconventional spirituals. With careful attention to the strange little coincidences that follow us through our lives, which for Sari arrive invariably at the hour of 11:11, she has released her second album of 11 songs on May 11th, 2009, the day after her 22nd birthday. The new release, “The Color Suite,” is a concept album that unfolds an 8-month narrative of uncanny symbolic resonance.

Sari’s music is made up of heartfelt letters, spirituals for the 21st century, smooth saxophone sounds, swelling cymbals, dreams inspired by melodies and melodies inspired by dreams, reimaginings of myths and parables, and an alto voice that is brimming with equal parts longing and joy. “The Color Suite” could be called a collection of synchronistic torch songs; songs written in an attempt to illuminate hidden pathways through life’s often confusing narrative. Sari finds utility of meaning in traversing the thin membrane between dreams and the waking world, and she uses her music to these ends. Her voice swims over a liquid electric organ line along with moonlit lakes and mysterious gray cats, yet the morning finds her strumming a ukulele against the backdrop of percussive kitty litter, and eggs frying in a zealous amount of butter. She writes a love letter, yet it isn’t to her lover, and she explores both the freeing and binding beauty of golden wedding rings, curving opposite ends of an experience into something so perfectly round that you could wear it on your hand. She is releasing this recording packaged inside a small chapbook of her own writings that expand and connect the themes of dreams, coincidences, and the surprisingly intricate process of becoming a woman.

To fit with the latter theme, most of her fellow musicians on “The Color Suite” are women (with the notables exceptions of Dan Piccolo, a genius of percussive prerogatives, and Joey Dosik, who is responsible for every saxophone sound on the record). The women consist of Sari’s fellow Earthwork artists: Daisy May’s soulful voice graces several songs, as does her fiddle, violin, viola and—appetizingly enough—acorn squash. Jen Sygit sings and plays smoky dobro, banjo, and electric guitar. Laura Bates makes striking harmonies and plunks out plucky piano parts, while Susan Fawcett delivers with precision on erhu (a type of Chinese violin), fiddle, violin and musical saw.

These days the Colortones, those aforementioned mythical tree swing entities, are personified by Sari’s delectable new backing band, featuring Dan Piccolo on yellow, Ben Rolston on orange, Tobey LaRoche on purple, Mike Harrist on pink, Brett Chalfin on red, Bob Huffman on green, Grant Wicks on Lesley (a brand new color, obscured from the human eye until now?), Fritz Crisler on gray, and Doug Brown on brown. You’ll be able to find some or all of them swinging sweetly on Sari’s songs in the Midwest, New England, and beyond.

Sari's dad Doug will open the show.  Douglas Brown is a multi-talented eclectic artist. His roots are in Blues, R&B, Jazz, Rock, and Folk. Douglas has played with acts local, national, and international. He has played with artists as varied as Chuck Berry, North Star (a band consisting of members of Smokey Robinson's backup band), The Four Tops, Martha Reeves, Tommy Bolin, Norma Bell, Spyder Turner, The Garfield Blues Band, Koko Taylor, Dennis Coffey, jazz great Cameron Brown, free jazz saxophonist Faruk Z Bey, and Detroit's Sun Messengers. Doug even works with local Ann Arbor talent. He is a member of The Sari Brown Band, and performs both music and spoken word shows with Andrew Brown.

Brown had a hit single on the local charts in 1980 that crossed over from pop to R&B. He even reached the top ten on Detroit's black music stations; not an easy feat for a white boy. This single even earned him Billboard magazine's "hit pick of the week" status.

Doug has finished recording a new seminal work entitled "Man of Clay". It was released on February 20, 2009. The entire album was recorded live at his home studio and mixed by his son, Eli at Detroit's Sick Boy Productions. The disc was recorded with no band, just Brown, his songs, piano and voice. The material is straight from the soul of this seasoned songwriter. The songs are about love, life, vulnerability and struggle to create a better worlds for all people.