NEED TO KNOW
- Lady Gaga is the godmother of her bandleader Brian Newman’s daughter, Sistilia
- The trumpet player exclusively tells PEOPLE what the 14-time Grammy winner is like as a godmother, and talks about their friendship and working partnership through the years
- Newman recently wrapped his residency at the Flatiron Room in Manhattan and is returning to the venue this fall
Brian Newman always knew Lady Gaga, the godmother of his daughter, would be big.
The trumpeter and bandleader for Gaga’s jazz endeavors met her when he was a bartender and she was a go-go dancer in the Lower East Side.
“She was always just cool, man. She was just the coolest,” he tells PEOPLE via Zoom call from his garage in Brooklyn (his car’s in the shop getting reupholstered). “My first impression was that she was a hard worker and a fun person to be around, and she’s always been like that.”
Newman adds, “She always had a bigger-than-life kind of vibe. I mean, I think it was always apparent.”
And as a godmother? “She’s great,” he confirms.
Newman and his family, wife Angie Pontani and their daughter Sistilia, are featured in the first part of the 2017 documentary Lady Gaga: Five Foot Two. Though the 9-year-old has yet to see it, Newman thinks she understands who her godmother is.
“She’s been to the concerts, she’s been to the Vegas [show] and backstage and she’s been to Chromatica and yeah, I think she gets it. She’s still only 9, though, so who knows,” Newman says.
“I have to tell her, sometimes we tell her, ‘Hey Sistilia, not everyone gets to do stuff like this.’ So she has a very cool life, especially with her mom and dad. She’s been backstage with us, on the road with us, in Vegas on our shows, and she’s just a great showbiz kid, man.”
The trumpet player gushes, “She’s a great, wonderful, wonderful kid.”
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Throughout the years of their friendship, Newman says he’s enjoyed watching Gaga, 39, go through different genres and eras throughout her career.
“[It] has always been cool to see her just do everything and just topping, everything she tops it’s better than the last thing. It’s just always from the heart,” he says.
Newman and Gaga collaborated on albums Cheek to Cheek and Love for Sale with Tony Bennett, along with the Joker: Folie à Deux companion album Harlequin, among other works.
As fans may recall, Gaga shared a sweet picture of her and her goddaughter almost a decade ago when celebrating Sistilia’s baptism.
“So proud to be made one of the godmothers of our little angel Sistilia,” she wrote on Instagram in 2016. “Brian and his wife Angie have been my friends since we were kids on the Lower East Side. It was a beautiful baptism and Italian style feast. We love u sissy!”
Newman, 44, has been a musician for decades. His passion began when he was 10 years old, playing the trumpet and influenced by musicians like Chet Baker and Miles Davis.
After dropping out of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (where he is currently finishing his degree), Newman moved to New York in 2003 and “walked around the city in a suit in July trying to get a waiter job or any job known to man.”
He began hanging out at jazz clubs and working in downtown Manhattan and for several years worked “every other job known to man, busboy, back waiter, bartender, moving company, film car driver.”
Newman eventually got a gig performing at Duane Park and was able to pack the venue for music and burlesque performances. This led to bookings at the Rose Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel and Plaza Hotel’s Oak Room — and inspired his knack for production, creating programming for venues in New York and beyond.
Most recently, Newman held a residency at the Flatiron Room in Murray Hill, which wrapped up on June 7 and will see his return in the fall. “Tommy [Tardie, who opened the venue in 2012] just had the right vibe with that. The stage is great, the sound people are great, the sound system is great, the food is great, the drinks,” he says.
“Tommy was coming to those places. We ended up starting to play there, and I try to bring the energy.”
At the Flatiron Room, Newman is all about celebrating the Great American Songbook and “making people forget about their BS going on in their lives from day to day for at least a couple of hours.”
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“The thing I love about the Flatiron Room is just that we can really stretch there. We can, of course, we’re entertaining and we’re making sure the crowd is having a great time, but it is a great place for me to try new things. It’s a great place to break in new music, to invite people down to see us,” he continues.
“That’s the coolest thing to me about the joint that I love being there. I’d rather be there on a Saturday night than anywhere else.”
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