The contrast is part of what makes Newman\u2019s career feel distinctly New York. <\/p>\n
A singer and trumpet player, Newman arrived in New York in 2003 with little more than a U-Haul, $500 and the determination to find a way to stay. He waited tables, took gigs wherever he could find them and scoured Craigslist for opportunities. More than 20 years later, he has built a career that has taken him around the world \u2014 while continuing to make Brooklyn home. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just started beating the pavement and looking for work, waiting tables, whatever I could do to stay here,\u201d Newman told Brooklyn Paper. \u201cAt the same time, I was taking gigs off of Craigslist and just trying to meet as many people as I could and really just make those connections.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had come to the city with a simple conviction: that he had something to say. <\/p>\n
\u201cI knew there was something that I had to say to the world and something that I could do to make people feel good,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was really my goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Angie4184.jpeg\")
Trumpeter Brian Newman moved from Ohio to New York City in 2003, with just $500 and a dream to make it in the lively music scene.Photo by Ab Sesay<\/p>\n
The philosophy has followed him through nearly every chapter of his career. <\/p>\n
Newman\u2019s path eventually led him to Gaga, then Bennett, including a now-famous night at the Robin Hood Gala. Newman was in Cleveland visiting his parents when Gaga called and asked if he could make it to the Javits Center that evening. His father drove him to the airport immediately. When he arrived, a cart was waiting to whisk him through the airport \u2014 a first glimpse of a world far removed from the one he had entered in 2003. <\/p>\n
Angie Pontani, Newman\u2019s wife and creative partner, brought his suits to the city for the performance.<\/p>\n
Bennett happened to be there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember him coming backstage and just saying to Gaga, \u2018We should do a record together,\u2019\u201d Newman recalled, referencing the birth of the 2014 album \u201cCheek to Cheek.\u201d <\/p>\n
The collaboration with Bennett followed, as did years of work with some of the biggest names and venues in entertainment.<\/p>\n
But Newman is wary of describing any of it as a single \u201cI made it\u201d moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I ever feel like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the show business, he and Pontani joke, the distance between glamour and grit can be remarkably short. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne day you\u2019re on the red carpet and the next day you\u2019re getting changed in a bathroom,\u201d Newman said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Angie3995.jpeg\")
Aside from his solo pursuits, Brian Newman serves as Lady Gaga\u2019s bandleader.Photo by Ab Sesay<\/p>\n
For Newman, the more meaningful milestone has been less about the fame than sustainability: paying the bills, finding good work and creating spaces where other artists can do the same. <\/p>\n
That has meant becoming not only a performer but a curator of New York nightlife. He has programmed music at the Roxy Hotel, worked at the Rose Bae and the Oak Room at The Plaza, and developed shows that bring musicians, dancers and performers into the same room. <\/p>\n
His creative partnership with his wife grew from that same intersection. <\/p>\n
Pontani, a longtime burlesque dancer, producer, choreographer and costumer, has spent years working to push burlesque farther into mainstream culture. Together, she and Newman produce their After Dark show, where live jazz and burlesque meet in a deliberately unpredictable format. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so spoiled rotten as a burlesque dancer to be able to perform with this band,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s almost ruined me in a sense because now when I go out and I work on my own, I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, I have to perform to a track?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
With a live band, she said, a performance can stretch and respond to the room.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can make that song five minutes. I can change where the bumps are. We can ride the wave of energy with the audience together,\u201d Pontani said. \u201cWhen we\u2019re on stage together, it\u2019s like I\u2019m a member of the band.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple\u2019s working relationship is not always as harmonious backstage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have two different working styles when it comes to pre-production,\u201d Pontani said. \u201cBut we meet on stage and we\u2019re good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newman laughed. <\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, all bets are off on stage,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Once, after a particularly heated argument before a show in Las Vegas, the pair took the stage and somehow turned their frustration into one of their best performances.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were literally looking in our eyes,\u201d Newman said. \u201cI was playing trumpet. She was dancing and\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n
Pontani said, \u201cI was hissing at him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody said, \u2018You guys were great tonight,\u2019\u201d Newman recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re like, \u2018That\u2019s \u2019cause I wanna kill him!\u2019\u201d Pontani said.<\/p>\n
That ability to turn tension into energy is part of what the couple sees as the larger purpose of live entertainment: getting people out of their own heads and into a shared moment. <\/p>\n
Newman said his experiences with Bennett and Gaga only reinforced something he already believed \u2014 that the work ultimately comes down to people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just solidified for me that this is the way to act,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about people. It\u2019s all about your craft, your music and bringing people to that and creating happiness and life and love.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Angie4391-1.jpeg\")
Brian Newman and his wife Angie Pontani have been longtime collaborators, combining music and burlesque.Photo by Ab Sesay<\/p>\n
That philosophy also informs how Newman thinks about New York\u2019s music scene. He has watched the city\u2019s nightlife change over the more than 20 years he has worked here. But rather than focusing on what has disappeared, he is interested in what can still be built.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never got into the jazz culture. I don\u2019t like the ego, I don\u2019t like the cliquiness of it,\u201d Newman said. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to impress a bunch of jazz musicians. I\u2019m trying to bring love and light and music to people in a fun way and like, as an entertainer.\u201d<\/p>\n
His larger mantra is simple: \u201cThere\u2019s room for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if you don\u2019t see a space for you, you have to create it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a philosophy that seems fitting for a musician who has spent his career moving between the old and new versions of the city. <\/p>\n
Newman\u2019s musical influences stretch across generations, from Cole Porter and Louis Armstrong to Nirvana, Sting, Thin Lizzy and Earth, Wind & Fire and Bruce Springsteen. He sees no contradiction in putting them in the same musical universe. <\/p>\n
For him, they are all part of the same evolving American musical tradition.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir influences were Cole Porter and Louis Armstrong and those guys,\u201d Newman said of earlier jazz musicians. \u201cBut for me, my influences come from growing up in the \u201990s and the 2000s and in the \u201980s even. We do so much of that era of music.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Image-10-5-26-at-11.49-AM.jpeg\")
The vinyl release party for Brian Newman\u2019s \u201cSongs for Lonely Lovers\u201d will take place at Joanne Trattoria on Nov. 6, owned by the Germanotta family.Photo courtesy of Google Maps<\/p>\n