Jenny and the band present fresh, swinging, evocative jazz and Latin treatments of songs by lyricist Johnny Mercer and some of the best 20th Century American composers including Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern and Henry Mancini.

15 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Jazz Vocals, JAZZ: Smooth Jazz



Details:
Jenny Ferris sang regularly at Bay Area jazz clubs from the mid-70âs through the 80âs. In 1985 she recorded a well-received jazz album âNot So Long Agoâ with some of the best musicians around at that time, namely, saxophonist Chuck Clark, pianist Bryce Rohde, bassist Perry Thoorsell and drummer, Dave Meade.
In the mid-90's and after a two-year sojourn in New York, things slowed down for Jenny musically. She never stopped singing, but public performances got rarer as she spent more time with her family and at her day job as a special education teacher working with visually impaired students, a job from which she retired in 2004.
During this period, from the mid-90âs and into the new century, Jenny maintained close friendships with some wonderful musicians who encouraged her to return to singing more frequently professionally. But not until she happened to hear Terry Gross interviewing author Phillip Furia on âFresh Airâ did Jenny seriously think about getting back into music in a more intense way. In a word (or three), she got inspired.
On âFresh Airâ, Furia was promoting his book, SKYLARK, a generous and well-written biography of Johnny Mercer. Jenny had always been a Mercer fan. She read the book, felt empathy and admiration for its subject ( a most creative, talented and complicated man), and got busy selecting and learning, or re-learning, enough Mercer material to fill a concert program. For Jenny, the appeal of this music lay not only in the folksy, evocative lyrics of Johnny Mercer, but in the excellence of the composers he worked with, namely Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael, Jerome Kern and Henry Mancini, among others.
Pianist Laura Klein, bassist Carol DeArment, drummers Tom Hassett and Bryan Bowman, guitarist/composer/arranger Tony Corman, and Jennyâs talented saxophonist husband, Rich Lesnik, jumped into the Mercer project with all twelve feet. There followed a series of well-attended âMostly Mercerâ concerts
Jenny and the band have now completed a CD of this concert material, DAY IN DAY OUT . Some of the songs included in the CD are: âCome Rain or Come Shineâ, âLauraâ, âAccentuate the Positiveâ, âHit the Road to Dreamlandâ, âMy Shining Hourâ, âDay In, Day Outâ, âTwilight Worldâ, âOne for My Babyâ, and a most unusual adaptation of âSatin Dollâ concocted by arranger Tony Corman.
The music on this album may consist of standard material, but it is varied in treatment, fresh in its arrangements, and presented with the respect
and musicianship it deserves. And, oh yes. It's very fun to listen to.