Mother Nature…Still Undefeated
Do you remember the Chiffon margarine commercial where “Mother Nature” tastes the product and declares it to be her “sweet creamy butter”? Upon learning that it is really margarine, “Mother Nature” becomes angry and shouts, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”
California fires. Tornadoes. Floods. The truth is, no one fools, defeats or sidesteps Mother Nature. No matter who or what Mother Nature uses to devastate us, she wins. Recently, it was Jamaica.
A Category 5 storm wreaked havoc on Jamaica. Loss of power, loss of livelihood, homelessness. Hurricane Melissa killed over 50 people and has upended the lives of thousands and thousands more.
When we first heard of the tragedy, we knew that Christian McBride’s World at Sea Cruise would be impacted. Guests were calling the office, asking us what the plan was in the aftermath. Many insisted that we find another port-of-call for the trip.
An equal number of guests thought that Jamaica needed our visit more than we needed a “day at a beach.” We agreed.
So, we waited, hoping that good news would come and we could call on Jamaica. The good news never came. The damage has rendered any visit by us not only barren of activities, but unsafe. That is the line that we cannot cross.
Below is the new itinerary with a Thursday call on Cozumel taking the place of a Friday call on Jamaica. No doubt that our visit to Cozumel will be memorable and fun. You can count on that.
But it would have been nice to show support for Jamaica and the people of that country. Mother Nature wins. Every time.
Christian McBride’s World at Sea Itinerary
Cruise Program Updates
Keeping up with the status of our various cruise programs is challenging. We hope that this simple chart will keep you up to date. For more information about the cruises, go to www.scecruises.com.
| Cruise | Sailing Dates | Status |
| David Foster: The Hitman Cruise | 1.15.26 – 1.20.26 | Veranda/Ocean View/Inside Staterooms Available Promo: FOV (Best Prices) |
| Christian McBride’s World at Sea | 1.20.26 – 1.27.26 | Staterooms in Several Categories Available Promo: FINAL (Best Prices) |
| The Jazz Cruise ’26 | 1.27.26 – 2.3.26 | Fewer than 40 Staterooms Remain Available |
| The Smooth Jazz Cruise ‘26.1 | 2.3.26 – 2.10.26 | Fully Reserved |
| The Smooth Jazz Cruise ‘26.2 | 2.10.26 – 2.17.26 | Fully Reserved |
| The Smooth Jazz Cruise ‘26.3 | 9.11.26 – 9.18.26 | Fewer than 40 Staterooms Available |
| Botti at Sea ’26 | 9.18.26 – 9.26.26 | Open Booking in Effect |
| The Jazz Cruise ’27 | 1.17.27 – 1.24.27 | ’26 Guests May Rebook until 1.30.26 Pre-Sail Reservations Open until 2.3.26 |
| Journey of Jazz ’27 | 1.24.27 – 1.31.27 | ’25 Guests May Rebook until 12.12.25 Pre-Sail Reservations Open until 12.10.25 |
| The Smooth Jazz Cruise ‘27.1 | 1.31.27 – 2.7.27 | ’26 Guests May Rebook until 11.26.25 Pre-Sail Reservations Open until 11.30.25 |
| The Smooth Jazz Cruise ‘27.2 | 2.7.27 – 2.14.27 | ’26 Guests May Rebook until 11.26.25 Pre-Sail Reservations Open until 11.30.25 |
Gene Dobbs Bradford Joins Signature Cruise Experiences
If ever there was a match made in heaven, Gene Dobbs Bradford has joined Signature Cruise Experiences as its first Artistic Administrator. Born in Athens, Ohio, some 58 years ago, Bradford and his family migrated to Columbia, Maryland, one of the nation’s first planned communities, where music found him in elementary school.
“I started out playing violin, and then my hands got too big and I had to switch to viola,” Gene remembers. “When my hands got too large for viola, my music instructor jumped me right over the cello to the double bass.”
Though classically trained, jazz was to be his passion. As a high school student, he and a friend would sneak into the Jazz Closet, a jazz club in nearby Baltimore, and listen to Gary Bartz. He said their clandestine entrances were probably the least of the vices that prevailed there at the time.
Bradford was educated at the highly acclaimed Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, initially studying classical bass performance. Also in college, he began “seriously” playing the instrument with which local audiences associate him: the harmonica. Bradford didn’t perform the instrument live, he said, “until a chance meeting with Ian Kennedy – a classical violin student and younger fraternity brother,” who ran to get a guitar after Bradford played him a Muddy Waters record. This evolved into a close relationship marked by sitting in on the Friday night jam session at Pooch’s Pub in Rochester. “We tore the place up,” Bradford said. A year later they started The Crawling King Snakes and were delighted to be paid in chicken wings and beer.
Following college graduation, Bradford interned with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, New Mexico Symphony and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Then he discovered his true calling: “I got into orchestra management because I enjoyed arranging and creating events that involved music even more than performing.”
After honing his presenting skills as production manager for the Honolulu Symphony from 1990 to 1993, he assumed the position of operations manager with the Saint Louis Symphony, rising to director of operations before departing in 1999 to take over at Jazz at the Bistro.
A relative unknown to the jazz community, he replaced his good friend, the beloved “Jazz Mom,” Barbara Rose, who had booked legends into the club. Back to Kismet, Barbara was a close friend and bridge partner of another St. Louis “Jazz Mom,” Anita E. Berry, the founder of The Jazz Cruise, the first full ship charter jazz cruise in the world. From a small start in 2001, that cruise was the impetus for growth which eventually became Signature Cruise Experiences. The world of jazz can be a very small sandbox.
From the beginning, Bradford has scheduled superb performers for one of the nation’s premier jazz venues, with a trend toward more adventurous acts, which most have found to be fulfilling. Bradford’s 23-year stewardship of Jazz at the Bistro, now known as Jazz St. Louis, was marked by meteoric increases in performances, endowments and prestige. With his work done in St. Louis, it was time to scale other heights.
A nationwide search for the Executive Director of the Savannah Music Festival found Bradford and in 2022 he took the helm. Under Bradford’s direction, Savannah Music Festival has expanded its presence outside of the 17-day festival through partnerships with District Live and Victory North, expanded education and community impact programs and increased contributed revenue by 25%. Family ties and commitments led Bradford to resign his position with the Savannah Music Festival in June 2025 and return to St. Louis.
Michael Lazaroff, Executive Director of Signature Cruise Experiences, learned that Bradford was back in St. Louis on Sunday, November 9, 2025. By Thursday, November 13, 2025, Bradford was offered and accepted his new role. The “delay” was caused by Signature Cruise Experiences needing a few days to find contact information for Bradford. November 17, 2025 found Bradford hard at work looking to fill the openings in the company’s ’27 Cruises.
Obviously thrilled to have Gene Dobbs Bradford on the team, Lazaroff offered the following:
“I cannot emphasize enough how excited and fortunate we are to have someone of Gene Dobbs Bradford’s skill and talent working at our company I have known Gene for years and I doubt that there is a more knowledgeable, hands on producer and curator of jazz programs in the country. He will elevate our lineups. This is truly a game changer.”
“I have enjoyed watching Signature Cruise Experiences blossom and thrive through a commitment to artistic and customer service excellence and am honored to be a part of it,” offered Bradford. “A cruise is a big investment. Our customers put a tremendous amount of trust in us to make sure their vacation is everything they dreamed and I am dedicated to working with the fantastic team here to continue ensuring that it is even more! I can’t wait to see you onboard.”
To Gene Dobbs Bradford, welcome back to St. Louis and welcome to Signature Cruise Experiences.
Brenna Whitaker: From the Basement to the Stage
Born and raised in Kansas City, the talented vocalist Brenna Whitaker was encouraged from a very young age by her parents to pursue her love of music.
“As a first grader, I realized I had an ear for harmonies and the piano,” she explains. “Those two things helped me find the fun in using my singing voice as a form of expression musically. I had incredible parents and they let me bang on the piano at 2 years old on and fully supported that I had an interest in music.” By the time she was 11 years old, she was performing in professional regional theater, an experience that would aid her when she would take to the stage later as a singer.
The setting there in the Midwest also informed her musical development. “I was in the basement,” she says. “Growing up in Kansas you get the whole ‘basement’ thing with tornados being common. I spent a lot of time thinking about ‘What if?’ as a kid. I think you definitely manifest your role in creating your future in anything creative.” Her “What if?” began with a move to New York City to pursue vocal studies with Broadway veterans and, after a short period back in Kansas City performing with her own jazz group, she moved to Los Angeles.
Performing at various clubs in LA, she met David Foster, who worked with her for debut album released on Verve, a label with a legacy established by vocal greats like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington. “I was over the moon,” Whitaker says. “When you walk into the Verve office, Louis Armstrong and Dinah Washington and Peggy Lee are right there to greet you on the walls. It felt a little overwhelming to think, ‘How am I gonna pull this off?’ I’m very lucky.”
Her own musical influences are very broad. “Everyone from Sister Rosetta Tharp to Adele to Etta James to Bonnie Raitt to Tom Jones,” she explains. “I like good old-fashioned singers who are not afraid to be good old-fashioned singers. I’m really inspired by singers who worked till they were in their 80s or 90s. That’s what I would like to do.”
Using her roots in jazz and blues, Whitaker aims to put her own personal and contemporary stamp on those traditions. “I love taking the best stories and interpreting my feelings through them,” she says. “I love playing characters through the real me and my experiences in life. The heartbreaking words and chords through jazz and blues really speak to me because I’m a very sensitive human.”
In Los Angeles, Whitaker had a chance to showcase her jazz roots and pop influences with a residency at the W Hollywood Hotel, where she was backed by a six-piece ensemble, in the mode of some of her heroes, like Etta James, Dinah Washington and Peggy Lee. “Throughout my life, I’ve often felt like I was born in the wrong time,” says Whitaker. “But now, I feel like I was born in this era for a reason.”
In addition to her collaboration with Foster, Whitaker has performed regularly with Andrea Bocelli. She will join David on the David Foster: The Hitman Cruise in January.
Lee Mergner
Jazz Consultant
Signature Cruise Experiences
SCE Artists in DownBeat’s Readers Poll
The December issue of DownBeat featured the results of their annual Readers Poll. The tradition of DownBeat polls goes back. Very far back, and it includes their Critics Poll. For our part, it’s the Readers Poll that resonates most with us because we program our jazz cruises for our guests’ enjoyment, not for what wonky jazz writers think is critically acclaimed or “cool.”
Not surprisingly, it turns out that DownBeat readers, obviously serious jazz fans, voted for many of the artists that sail regularly with us. Let’s start with the man on the cover, along with his friend Jeffrey Osborne. Christian McBride was voted for a virtual triple crown as Best Artist, Best Acoustic Bassist and Best Arranger. Not his first time at the rodeo.
Emmet Cohen, who took over duties as The Jazz Cruise host and counts Christian as a mentor, was voted the Best Pianist. Should we mention the many runner ups in that category, who have performed on our jazz cruise programs? How about (in order of ranking) Brad Mehldau, Kenny Barron, Bill Charlap, Monty Alexander, Eliane Elias, Robert Glasper, Joey Calderazzo, Benny Green and Aaron Parks. That trend of our artists showing up in the list of runner-ups continued across every category.
For better or worse, a few of our artists took the #1 slot away from their peers. Anat Cohen was voted the Best Clarinetist ahead of, yes, Paquito D’Rivera and Ken Peplowski. The same dynamic happened in the Best Acoustic Bassist category, won by Christian but followed in votes by SCE favorites like Ron Carter, John Patitucci and John Clayton.
We’ve always presented the very best in jazz vocalists, and apparently DownBeats readers recognize that greatness, voting Kurt Elling as the Best Male Jazz Vocalist and Samara Joy as the Best Female Jazz Vocalist. And, in keeping with the theme of this message, Samara was immediately followed in votes by Cècile McLorin Salvant, Diana Krall, Dianne Reeves and Dee Dee Bridgewater, all of whom have sailed with us and all of whom are in the pantheon of the greatest jazz vocalists of our time.
Christian was not the only host (or bassist) to be recognized in this poll. Marcus Miller, co-host of both The Smooth Jazz Cruise and Journey of Jazz, was voted the Best Electric Bassist. I don’t think that Christian minded being voted in third place in that category.
Ultimately, polls are polls. What really counts is the music, most often played by not only poll-winning musicians, but also by players who don’t appear in those lists. We know that our guests know who they are because they tell us. That’s the poll we listen most closely to.
Lee Mergner
Jazz Consultant
Signature Cruise Experiences
Jazz Cruises Conversations Podcast: Ravi Coltrane with Marcus Miller
This episode, from the Journey of Jazz cruise, features an interview by cruise co-host Marcus Miller of Ravi Coltrane, who talked about his evolution as a jazz saxophonist and about his relationship with both his mother, Alice Coltrane, who raised him, and his father, John Coltrane, whose outsized legacy he had to deal with.
