From his youngest days, Casey Abrams’ musical imagination became focused on trying to play every one of the music teacher Mrs. Purdy’s collection of exotic world instruments at elementary school, McKenzie School in Wilmette, Illinois had in their collection.
While in Wilmette, he took piano lessons, and while he couldn’t read or write music very well, he composed a song called Jamaican Beach. His piano teacher Gloria Yun, was so impressed by his music that she wrote it down and had it published in a publication for piano teachers and played it at his first recital. Casey’s first public singing performance was at a karaoke café in Wilmette, where he bravely got up to sing the Bee Gees hit Stayin’ Alive to a packed audience of college students, many of whom got up to dance and to raucously accompany him on stage. Casey was elated, and a star was born!
Later, when he was in the 5th Grade, Casey and his family moved to Idyllwild, California, a small mountain town full of artists and a renowned High School for the arts, the Idyllwild Arts Academy, where his father Ira taught Film and Spanish, and his mother Pam organized screenwriting workshops and retreats. In Idyllwild, Casey adopted his first puppy, Rockee, a Golden Retriever mix without a tail, and began to Photoshop himself into his own pop/rock garage band, DOGSTUBB — all the while, absorbing healthy doses of his parents’ eclectic library of cassette tapes and vinyl, including folk, roots, baroque,, classic rock, and especially classical jazz.
Like any active middle schooler, Casey hated to practice piano for his piano teacher Robin Rabins, but when he saw her big upright bass in the room, he accepted her inspired bribe: a successful hour- long piano lesson in exchange for a ten-minute lesson on the bass.
After a few months, she felt there wasn’t much more she could teach Casey, and that he needed to meet up with Marshall Hawkins, the jazz bass maestro of Idyllwild, who had toured with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, and who taught at the Idyllwild Arts Academy.
At 13, Casey began a fruitful mentorship with professional bassist Hawkins, and was accepted at the acclaimed jazz program to study with Hawkins at Idyllwild Arts Academy for his high school years. Besides studying his beloved double bass, he also became adept at keyboard, electric bass, guitar, drums, accordion, sitar and again diving into a diverse selection of world instruments.
Casey also composed, orchestrated and arranged film scores and helped create original musical films during his four years at Idyllwild Arts. As a teen, his score for Thoughts of a Dying Atheist was chosen Best Short score at the Bosporus International Film Festival, in Turkey. and a student film he was featured in, 18 Minutes, was chosen to be in the Short Film Showcase in Cannes. In his senior year, an original film musical that he co-composed and arranged, and was a lead actor in, Loaf of Love, was screened at the Palm Springs Short Film Festival and received an Audience Award at the Universal Film Festival at Universal Studios.
After being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis in his Freshman year in the jazz program at University of Colorado at Boulder, Casey had to leave school, but out of the blue he set his sights on singing after watching American Idol with his mother while recovering in Boulder, and promptly auditioned for the show back in Austin TX where he was born.
With his trusty stand-up bass and a melodica just for fun, he moved quickly through the ranks, finding himself completely at home on the TV broadcast stage at 19, being an entertainer as well as “the best musician we’ve ever had on Idol,” according to Idol Judge Randy Jackson. He made it to the Finals at number 6 for Season 10 of Idol before he was voted off, but left as a memorable fan favorite, loving performing Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls with one of his idols, Jack Black. at the Season 10 Finale. Most importantly, he left an indelible stamp on the show, by announcing his commitment to be a bridge to jazz for his huge American TV audiences.
Following the Season 10 American Idol Tour, Casey recorded a now-classic rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” with best Idol buddy and musical soul- mate, Haley Reinhart, and then was signed to Concord Records, where Randy Jackson produced his first album, “Casey Abrams,” recorded in London at the Kensaltown Studios, and was voted the #1 Billboard Heat Seekers Album.
Since then, he’s written, arranged, performed, and at times produced, four other albums:
“Tales from the Gingerbread House” (2014) with his 8-piece Ginger Bread Band.
“Casey Abrams Live” (2015) with his rollicking jazz-steeped Funkhaus Band. And most recently, for audiophile label Chesky Records:
“Put A Spell On You” (2018) an eclectic mix of Casey’s new music with some favorites from Idol days.
“JAZZ” (2019), a veritable set list of Casey’s choice of jazz standards, recorded in binaural sound in an old church, with New York jazz world pros.
And, now, “Uncovered,” an EP of additional songs from his two previous albums.
In 2015, Casey joined Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, which re-invents current pop hits into 1920’s-1950s jazz/blues genres, as one of its leading performers and emcees & the online star of many of PMJ’s most popular viral videos. To date, Casey has tallied over 150,000,000 views for his video performances on PMJ alone. He has completed dozens of national and International PMJ Tours in the past 5 years on 5 continents, playing to packed audiences at the Sydney Opera House, Denver’s Red Rock Amphitheater, Paris’ L’Olympia, London’s O2 Arena, Radio City Music Hall and heading up a residency at The Mirage, Las Vegas.
Casey has also performed solo, and/or with his mates and ensembles throughout the world in front of crowds of all ages and cultures, in such places as Malaysia, Ethiopia, The Dominican Republic, and Mexico; and has Headlined for 5 years at the 20- year-old Idyllwild Jazz Festival, which was created and directed so long ago by his original mentor, teacher and friend, Marshall Hawkins.
Casey’s own jazz and funk-based solo career has landed him at Carnegie Hall with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, at LA’s Catalina Jazz Club to perform with Jack Black and Tenacious D, Basel, Switzerland, and at the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. He has performed often for charities and special events, and was an Official Spokesperson for the national Crones Colitis Foundation.
And as a solo performer, and with his own rotating band of jazz/funk/rock/pop musicians, Casey has for years been hugely popular on social media, scoring almost 400,000,000 views of his own music videos and appearances throughout the internet and on his own YouTube channel.
In 2019 alone, Casey was a featured actor in the feature film Love and Debt, and shared the screen with such well-known actors as Tom Cavanaugh, Yeardley Smith, and Bailee Madison, and a featured performer in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas in Las Vegas. He was a featured musician and singer floating and frolicking around Australia with the famous Dave Koz Jazz Cruise in the Spring of 2019, And in the Fall, he was back again in Australia , this time on land, heading up the Postmodern Jukebox 6-week tour around all of Australia and New Zealand.
Casey Abrams is a member in good standing of SAG/AFTRA, the International Bassists Association, and is the Owner and President of Dogstubb Productions. Inc., Los Angeles, California.
Casey’s music career has been filled with both joy and constant innovation, resulting in inventive digital music productions and special stage performance moments that are free-spirited, loving and authentic. He is in love with his job: the delivery of his own unique personalized music experience, for each individual digital fan and for each individual audience in intimate clubs up to vast theaters and stages all around the world.