Genuine, experienced, and versatile, Jenifer Jackson is
a singer/songwriter whose music seeks out the most fundamental human
experiences: love, melancholy, redemption, and joy. With a collage
of genres deftly arranged and reinvented through her unique vision,
she erases borders and speaks to a broad audience of music lovers.
Jenifer's new album, So High (Bar None), is peppered with
instrumental surprises (note church bells) and has an enduring lyrical
quality.
We spoke with her from Austin where she and her band played the
legendary Cactus Café, which, she noted, "is one of the few places
down here where people really sit down and listen." She will be
playing again in New York and the New England area after the release
of So High on March 11.
WOMANROCK:
In your recent performances are you singing mostly songs off the
new album, So High?
Jenifer:
Yeah, as a rule, these past few months I've been playing mostly
new stuff off the record, plus a few things I haven't recorded yet.
WOMANROCK:
How has it been to work with Bar None for the first time?
Jenifer:
They're really nice people, I trust them, and it's a small company,
so I don't feel like I'm getting into something where I'm going
to be politicking a lot. I can just talk to them. I think it'll
be good. They'll be working it [So High] to radio a bit,
and they've gotten a publicist to help with some press. So they're
doing more than I would be doing on my own.
WOMANROCK:
What are your expectations for this particular album?
Jenifer:
It's my third CD that's going to be coming out here in the States,
and I think out of all of them, this is my most accessible and the
most immediate. I think some of my expectations would be that more
people get to hear it, that it gets out there more, and that it
kind of opens up some doors for me to be able to do more road work
and possibly get a little bit more connected with film. I think
that a lot of the music is really soundtrack-friendly.
WOMANROCK:
In listening to it, I could identify moments of funk, psychedelic,
soul, and jazz. When you are in the record store, where do you find
Jenifer Jackson CDs?
Jenifer:
In the past they've just been under vocalists, or maybe under pop.
WOMANROCK:
Would you say that those are accurate categorizations?
Jenifer:
I think it's a little tough because I feel like my writing is kind
of an amalgamation. There's old-school pop, I have a little bit
of jazz influence, definitely some soul influence, Bossa Nova, which
is one of my favorite types of music, that also kind of creeps into
some of my songs. I think it's tough to put it into a one-word category,
but I also think of it as soft rock in a way even though we don't
use that category anymore. I feel like it has that rock/pop foundation,
but it's kind of mellow and it's kind of melody driven and lyric
driven. Maybe this is why I'm not on a major label.
WOMANROCK:
How did you and your producer Pat Sansone collaborate in the decision-making
process, and how did you agree about when a song was done?
Jenifer:
I'm very wary of it being overdone. In a way it was fun, and interesting,
and also beneficial, I think, to work with Pat because he leaned
toward putting a lot of stuff on it, and my tendency would be to
keep it really simple. I think we were a good check and balance
for each other. I never wanted it to get to a point where the production
overpowered the actual song and the lyrics and just the basic song
structure. One of the most important parts of mixing, and something
that we kept falling back on, was just making sure that everything
had its space, and that if there was a little string part, that
it had its moment so that you could hear it and it wasn't crowded.
Kind of like a painting. That's when it just becomes more visual,
and you try to place it in a way so that everything is in proper
perspective in a way. Obviously, my stuff is really personal and
about my life and reflections on things that are going on in my
life, but then the other side of it is that I'm always inspired
by visuals.
WOMANROCK:
How do your past albums and experiences in making them compare with
So High?
Jenifer:
I think the making of these records has been an ongoing learning
process for me. The first one never got released and is sitting
in this guy's house in France and he wouldn't give me the master.
The second one was Slowly Bright, which I made with my old
bass player, Paul Brian, who lived in Boston at the time. So that
process took a really long time and it was laborious and there was
a lot of arguing, and we were also trying not to hurt each other's
feelings but it wasn't that much fun. The next album was Birds,
which I made with Brad Jones down in Nashville just kind of on the
spur of the moment. That one was really live and we did the entire
record from start to finish probably in about ten days.
He [Pat Sansone] and I met when I was making that album Birds
and Pat played a bit on the album. Then he moved to New York, and
started playing in my band. He's such a great musician, and a great
singer, and we have a really natural musical connection. It's like
we have similar DNA. If he has an idea, or if I have one, we're
always just about to suggest the exact same thing. We just have
that thing between us. So the whole thing just started with us saying,
let's just choose three or four songs and record them for a demo
and shop it around and try to find someone to put some money into
doing a record. But by the time we went down to Nashville, I had
ten songs ready to go. Pat would have and idea or I would have an
idea, and we would both be so excited about each other's idea, that
this was the first record I've made where I wasn't in a rush for
it to finish, I was just loving the whole process. I think as a
result, I think there is a bit more of a joyful feeling about the
whole record because the process was really fun.
WOMANROCK:
It sounds like a very positive experience, were there any big challenges
in making this album?
Jenifer:
Someone gave me this bit of criticism about my singing and my recording,
which really rang true to me. It's this guy who saw me doing other
people's material because I used to do a bunch of Loser's Lounges.
And he said to me, "God, when you sing someone else's song, you
really put it across, you put the lyrics across, and the emotional
motivation behind the lyrics comes across, and you really deliver
it. I feel like in your own recordings you're more subtle about
it so it doesn't come across as well." I always lean to the opposite
extreme with my own material and I don't want it to be overdone
or the delivery to be over the top. I don't want to have American
Idol style delivery on my songs, I mean that's so gross! I want
it to be really understated and subtle, and I want the music to
kind of speak for itself, and if people get it that's great, and
if they don't that's okay too. So my challenge for myself was to
remain connected with the lyrics and what I was writing about in
the first place, and to really try to have that present in my brain
when I was recording it so that, hopefully, it would come across
in the end result.
WOMANROCK:
Why did you choose So High as the title of the album?
Jenifer:
Well, "So High" was one of the songs that I wrote very last minute
and the band never even heard. It was the last one I wrote, and
the motivation of that particular song is kind of evident in the
lyrics. I'd been through this really difficult, and long, drawn-out,
damaging, depressing relationship, and finally got out of, and then
went through that period of being in shock. After all that, I finally
got to a point where I felt like I just wanted to be open-hearted
again and open to new things and new people and if something is
feeling right, then I'm not going to let fear govern how I react
to something. We tracked the song in Nashville. It was a perfect
environment because we weren't on the clock and we were just in
someone's home. And we're all friends. In the morning we would get
up and make coffee and hang out and then say, let's roll tape and
try a song. "So High" was one that we just had a cup of coffee,
rolled tape, and the first take was just magical and we were so
excited. It made sense to me to call it that just because the general
vibe of this record, which to me is the light at the end of the
tunnel.
WOMANROCK:
Can you tell me more about that?
Jenifer:
There are certain sad elements and melancholy elements, and I think
that will always be in my writing, but in general, I felt that on
this record more of the songs were just breaking free of something
that I felt was really holding me under for a while. So High
just seemed like the perfect title because it has so many meanings.
So high could be in a drug sense, or it could be in a visual sense,
like soaring out of something. Or just getting above something and
gaining some perspective on it, and being able to look down on what
just went on. |
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