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Nicki Jaine - Bringing 40s Sounds To Today's Audiences
by Katie Strzeszewski
Special to MergeDigital
It's difficult enough trying to break into the music scene - even if you're playing contemporary styles of music that appeal to the average, everyday listener. But try breaking into the scene - any part of the scene - when your music sounds like something from an era that came and went decades before most of today's listeners were even born.
"It was challenging," admits Nicki Jaine, a singer-songwriter formerly from Asbury Park, NJ, now of Philadelphia, who performs solo as well as with her band, Revue Noir.
Her solo sound reminisces the 40s cabaret style when solo vocalists, often female, took the spotlight and entranced an entire audience. Except, of course, that Jaine modernizes the act by writing and playing her own material, as well as adding contemporary rhythms and harmonies over a sleek, sultry melody. Jaine's rich alto voice well complements the structure of her music, while her extraordinarily clear diction and experimentation with meter add even more flavor of the World War II era.
So imagine Jaine's surprise when her first big solo gig was opening for a heavy metal band in Philadlephia. "I didn't want to turn it down, because it was an opportunity to be heard," she says, "but it was nerve-wracking, because the styles [were] so different."
To Jaine's continued surprise, the audience received her music well. "I was amazed, but there was something there that connected with the crowd."
Jaine continues to connect with the crowd as a solo performer, but her work with Revue Noir helps her to experiment in a full-band nature. "It's different," she says of working solo as opposed to with a band. "[Working solo], you can do exactly what you want to do, exactly how you want to do it. With a band, it's more of a group effort in which you present an idea and blend it with the ideas of the other band members. I love it." Fortunately for Jaine, the Revue Noir style retains that 40s-influenced sound, except with more of a dramatic, story-telling, Broadway-esque tinge.
And for every challenge Jaine has faced, she also earned accolades for daring to do something different. From 2001-2003, Jaine was nominated for the "Best Female Solo Performer" award at the Asbury Park Music Awards, and in 2004, she was nominated for Best Female Entertainer at the Philadelphia Music Awards. Additionally, toured the United States during the fall of 2004, opening for and playing as a part of Projekt Record's Black Tape for a Blue Girl.
MergeDigital.com
July 2005