For over 20 years, Richie Cannata has been hosting a weekly Jam Session in NYC, that features all night live music by some of the worlds best musicians. For all that time, the Jam session focused on doing ONLY covers. The night is about performance and live music, not the promotion of any artists or writers... so original music is basically NEVER performed. 

But on June 21st, 2011 @ around 2AM (the first day official of summer), after performing a slammin' version of James Brown's "I Feel Good," Richie turned to Nathaniel at the piano and asked him to perform one of his originals for the audience! Nathaniel, snapping himself out of shock brought on by his understanding the magnitude and honor of such a request, responded by debuting a song that he recently had written entitled, "The Boy I Left Behind."

The song began with an enchanting piano intro that immediately inspired Richie, who joined in on sax only seconds later. The brief piano ballad, performed as an "off-the-cuff" duet between Nathaniel and Richie, captivated the audience and ended to the sound of whistles, applause and even a few screams of approval. Richie then immediately turned to Nathaniel, smiled and said, "Let's go to my house and we'll just do that all day long" This event stands as a highlight in Nathaniel's career, as he received an honor that FEW have ever received. An honor further magnified by the fact that Richie has now asked Nathaniel to return on the 4th of July to perform another of his originals with the entire band.

On Independence Day of this year (2011) Nathaniel will perform his inspiring ballad, "The Love of a Hero" which Richie has performed with Nathaniel elsewhere on several occasions, including his show at The Library of Congress (read more about that here) only a week earlier. The song also appears as the bonus track on Nathaniel's debut album "I Walk These Roads," which Richie also produced.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE LIVE PERFORMANCE