Even before R&B-jazz trumpeter-vocalist Johnny Britt dropped his seventh solo album, “After We Play,” on March 17, he scored his first No. 1 instrumental single as a solo artist with the title track, a duet with guitar star Peter White. And now he’s got a top 5 single on the R&B charts, a duet with urban crooner Will Downing titled “Butterflies.”
Britt wrote ten new songs for “After We Play,” a fusion of jazz, R&B, funk, soul, hip hop and sophisticated pop instrumentals and vocal tunes. On the disc, other noteworthy collaborators are fellow trumpeter Tom Browne, multi-time Grammy nominee Gerald Albright and Billboard chart-topper Nils.
A rising multidimensional talent on the music scene who has been around on records, stage, little and big screen since the 1990s, Britt hits a creative and career zenith on this breakthrough collection.
There’s another project on the horizon: Britt’s autobiography titled “The Soloist” will be released by summer. Before he was a solo artist, Britt played in a band as a teenager with Arsenio Hall while growing up “an inner city kid” in Cleveland; was made the youngest musical director ever for The Temptations, which led to coproducing the music for the Emmy-winning miniseries “The Temptations”; released four albums with his group Impromp2 on Motown’s jazz label; and became a singing member of Little Anthony’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group the Imperials with whom he’ll be touring with for three months this summer.
Britt wrote three No. 1 Billboard hits for saxophonist Boney James as well as songs for Peabo Bryson, Rick Braun, Euge Groove, Paul Brown, Jeff Golub, Jessy J and The Temptations. He played trumpet on the big screen in Academy Award-winner “La La Land” and was hired by Hans Zimmer to be the trumpet soloist for the Oscar nominated “Hidden Figures.”