Arts & Entertainment

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Nine Musical Days

COVER

Jazzy Jesse

West Bloomfield's own swings her way home for the
sixth annual JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music Festival.

Harry Kirsbaum

Special to the Jewish News

esse Palter, who performs
Sunday, March 7, during the
nine-day JCC Stephen Gottlieb
Music Festival, has come a long way since
the scolding she took during rehearsals
for a school production of Joseph & the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Abbott
Middle School in West Bloomfield.
Apparently, the production's director
thought it was a bad idea for a 12-year-
old girl to start riffing on the musical's
Andrew Lloyd Webber songs.
Although she was told not to "embel-
lish" songs in musical theater, Palter said
her teacher "encouraged my mother to
expose me to more jazz."
So she learned to play the trumpet and
played in jazz band.
"To me, it was like discovering a new
territory," said Palter, now 24 and based
in Chicago.
At the same time Palter was learning to
be a jazz singer, the music industry was
being saturated with pop princesses like
Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera
and boy bands like *NSYNC.
"Popular music came easy to me," she
said. "I sort of had it in my head that I
could make it as a mainstream teen pop
confection and then segue into a more
sophisticated jazz act?'
After writing and recording original
material with producers like Andrew
Gold (Linda Ronstadt and many other
artists), and then later a production deal
with the Bass Brothers, who produced
Eminem and 50 Cent, "I decided it was
time to go back to the drawing board and
acquire more knowledge about the sci-
ence of music?'
Six years ago she auditioned and was
accepted into the University of Michigan's
School of Music with a major in jazz.
Opportunities to put her own band
together presented themselves two years
later, and off she went.
"I realized it was better to take advan-
tage of the window of opportunity that
has been given to me," she said. "I am
always learning, though, and this is very
important to me. I surround myself with
some of the most incredible musicians

who consistently help to
push me and the music
forward?'
In 2006, 2007 and
2008, Palter won
Outstanding Jazz
Vocalist honors at the
Detroit Music Awards.
Her voice is malleable
— smoky or smooth,
and she's comfortable
singing from a wide rage
of influences.
Visit her MySpace
page, www.myspace.
com/jessepalter, and
you'll see her riff on
standards like "One For
My Baby:' and "I'll Be
Seeing You." She can do
the Beatles: "Hey Jude";
and Motown: "Tracks
of My Tears"; and even
patriotic: "The Star-
Spangled Banner," at a
Red Wings game.
While her band, the
Jesse Palter Quartet,
plays venues in Detroit,
Jesse Palter: Comfortable singing from a wide range
New York and Chicago,
of influences.
her Web site, www.pal-
terego.com, is a forum
not related to any record label.
for her original pop music — and her
"When it was time to record the music,
response to the current state of the music we conceptualized, wrote, funded, pro-
business.
duced and mixed the music ourselves:'
With help from collaborator keyboard-
she said. "The best way for us to get our
ist/composer/producer Sam Barsh, whom music out there is by word of mouth,
she met through a friend in 2006, her
to put it on the Internet in hopes that
group Jesse Palter and the Alter Ego
people will get as excited about the music
makes her music accessible for every-
as we are and support it so that we can
body.
continue to create?'
"I can still tell stories, be soulful and
For the Music Festival, Palter is thrilled
still feel inspired by music that isn't quite to play a mix of original jazz composi-
as esoteric as some of my endeavors with tions, some newer arrangements of
the quartet," she said. "Although jazz, like
the classics and a few surprises for the
fine wine, is a sophisticated and acquired hometown crowd in the city she loves.
taste and though I love it, my age group
"Not only is there an incredible energy
doesn't always connect to it the same way when performing in Motown," she says,
they connect to popular music. I wanted
"but having so many dear friends and
my friends to relate and take solace in
family in attendance will help make the
my music."
show inspired and creative?' n
Four songs are offered for purchase on
the Web site, including "Hot Mess:' a fun,
Harry Kirsbaum is associate director of mar-
catchy video filmed on a Tel Aviv bus.
keting and communications for the Jewish
The music is "pay what you feel;' and
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.

If you're going to see Hal Linden
open the nine-day JCC Stephen
Gottlieb Jewish Music Festival on
March 6, don't expect laser beams,
ground fog or fireworks.
"The evening is basically a ballad
to Broadway," said actor/singer/
musician Linden, who'll perform with
a seven-piece band and might even
break out his clarinet. "Songs I sang
on Broadway, songs I didn't sing on
Broadway, songs I wish I sang on
Broadway. A lot of stuff from my
past, and it all fits together."
From national stage acts to groups
with local connections – Shircago,
a five-member Jewish a cappella
vocal group whose founding member
Loren Shevitz is originally from West
Bloomfield, will sing original composi-
tions and traditional songs in Hebrew,
English and Yiddish on March 13
– the festival offers performances
over a spectrum of musical genres.
The sixth annual Music Festival
has expanded this year "from simply
a series of musical concerts to a
true festival that includes lectures
and workshops and other music-
related activities on top of the con-
certs that have always been a part
of this fabulous event," said Adina
Pergament, Music Festival director.
The festival has added a lec-
ture by Maestro Leonard Slatkin
of the DSO; two free workshops
– "Jewish Healing Through Music"
and "Israeli Dance"; a program fea-
turing Matisyahu from New York's
92nd Street Y via a live, interactive,
satellite broadcast; and later on, in
May, Banding Together, a teen music
showcase and charity event that will
feature performances by local teen
bands, musicians and vocalists.
The Music Festival also will simul-
taneously screen two different
Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival
movies, at the JCC buildings in Oak
Park and in West Bloomfield.
"We're also partnering with Barbara
& Douglas Bloom Matzah Factory so
that our family/children's concert
featuring Rabbi Joe Black will be
part of a larger, community-wide day
of Jewish cultural enrichment and
education for the entire family at
the Center," Pergament said.
Linda Lee and Martin Hollander,
both of West Bloomfield, serve as
event co-chairs.
"Music Festival is truly an oppor-
tunity for the entire community to
come together to enjoy the beauty
of music. There are programs for
all ages and interests," Lee said.
"During these difficult economic
times, we have kept the ticket prices
at a reasonable rate to encourage
the community to attend."

— Harry Kirsbaum

For a complete schedule of Music
Festival performances, including
ticket prices, see page 42.

JN

February 25 2010

41