Jeanette Lambert

By Alex Teitz

   Jeannette Lambert was born to jazz. Her parents were avid jazz fans and toured the world. Lambert follows that calling as a poet, and jazz artist. FEMMUSIC has wanted to talk to Lambert for some time. Lambert is the founder and creator of JazzGrrls.com, one of the best websites for women in jazz today.
Lambert’s style is impulsive and highly creative. It delves into corners not normally touched, and makes them doors. Lambert’s latest album isLone Jack Pine. For more information visit www.nette.ca

FEMMUSIC: Can you describe your songwriting technique?

JL: I usually start with poetry and develop melodies from those. I write my poems very quickly when I’m feeling inspired and then work on them as songs later on. A lot of editing occurs at that point, when I start to find the inherent rhythm and flow of the text. Often I’ll experiment with a poem using a multi-track recording, putting layers of voice over one another. Out of that process a melody emerges. When I perform the songs, as on Lone Jack Pine, the melody is there as a starting point, but it is not written in stone. All of the selections on the recording are improvised, so each performance is different every time.

FEMMUSIC: What was the biggest challenge making Lone Jack Pine?

JL: Well, when the recording was planned I didn’t realize I would be four months pregnant when we went in the studio to record it! You lose a whole lot of muscle power in your abdomen and your voice does change when you are pregnant. Even hormonal changes will alter your voice. So I had to work hard to keep my vocal technique strong and to make that biological change in my instrument a bonus rather than a hindrance. It was definitely a challenge.

FEMMUSIC: What was the best experience making Lone Jack Pine?

JL: Oh, that’s hard to say. We recorded it in two sessions and both times the sound engineers achieved a very natural, clear sound. Their understanding of our goals as musicians made it possible to perform without ever having to worry about any technical issues. So that was really great. Working with Barre Phillips, who is such an accomplished musician, was also very inspiring. When you perform with someone you admire so much it forces you to try to reach new levels yourself. He and Michel have a very special kind of empathy when they play, and that was great to witness as well. And for Michel and I to make this recording while we were expecting our first child – that was another creative aspect for us. It was a very fertile period for me, in many respects.

FEMMUSIC: Why did you start Jazz Grrls, and what are your goals with it?

JL: I was surfing the web, searching for something on women in jazz but couldn’t find anything. This was shocking to me, so I thought I should do something about it. I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a resource out there for everyone already. My motivation when creating the page was to make this enormous, endless list so that whenever someone claimed (as they often do) that ‘there are no women in jazz’, anyone else could point to this list and say ‘are you crazy? Look at all the names here!’. That invisibility would no longer be possible. I wanted young women in jazz to be able to research women who would be their role models. And if the list inspires some women in jazz to create websites and to put their stuff out there, that is also the goal. The internet can be a strong, democratic tool if you use it that way.
The Jazz Grrls mailing list is another electronic tool that a friend suggested to me at one point. That is a nice, community forming tool. It has its own ebb and flow depending on what people feel like talking about, and it is a great way to keep in touch with a lot of women in jazz, journalists, fans etc. all in one place.
Sometimes I think it would be fun to take it even further, to have a Jazz Grrls conference and festival one day. There is so much great talent looking for opportunities to play! So that would be one of my goals for the future, the touring Jazz Grrls Fair. Or the Jazz Grrls movie, that’d be cool.

FEMMUSIC: What one thing would you change about the music industry?

JL: How about everything? I don’t know, sometimes I find the economics of the industry hard to fathom. Trying to take art and music and commercialize them creates all these weird mutations, all this strange music that is marketed for the masses. I really wish there was more encouragement for people to create music for art’s sake instead of conventional notions of entertainment. I find that a lot of the music I receive is so busy trying to conform to a formula, all tangled in ideas of what women in jazz think the world expects of them. We have to give listeners and music fans more credit than that. The industry definitely undermines the music all the time in its rush to make money. But the music speaks for itself – if you’ve got a lot of businessmen making records, that is what the music is going to sound like. Business.

FEMMUSIC: As a woman in the music industry, have you been discriminated against?

JL: Yes, definitely. And as a woman in jazz, certainly. There are certain music circles where I am identified primarily by my relationship to men. I’ve had sound technicians accuse me of being a dominatrix before I’ve even tested a microphone. It can wear you down. I paid my dues when I was very young and I would go out to jazz clubs with old codger jazz guys who called me a chick singer and every other sexist name they could come up with. They were being affectionate and probably thought it would help me develop a thick skin. As it turns out, it worked. And I also had an opportunity to hear some great jazz artists in that environment, so what can you do? I kept a journal so maybe I can embarrass them in some memoirs one day.

FEMMUSIC: What advice would you give to an artist just starting out?

JL: Well, if you can start out by relaxing and just doing what you want, that is really the key. Even identifying what you really want and what you love to do, that can often be the hardest part. And then stay focussed on those goals and keep your strength and courage through all the obstacles that may (or may not) come your way. And seek out music that inspires you, and then express that creatively. If you really love what you are doing, you won’t even mind all the business and hard work that goes along with it. But that part should only come second, not first.