"Home" is where the HEART is; Chicago headliners, Miss McDougald & Ms Jordan Tackle NYC

"I'm going to be making records anyway, even if I have to sell 'em out of the trunk of my car.  I'm that kind of a musician" ~Dolly Parton

The first time I met Diva Lynne Jordan was 2005 at Green Dolphin Street.  She perched herself at the corner of the bar, in front of the "substitute stage" where my little trio was positioned.  The room, thankfully, was packed; unfortunately, the main stage and large room was occupied for a private event, so I was forced to sing in the bar area where the club's shrill doorbell diiiiiiiiiiiiing noise would pierce through every few bars of acoustic music as the front door opened with new patrons, looking for a seat.   This wore on my nerves like a fly buzzing in the ear of an insomniac.  The deftly out of tune upright piano literally had FORKS inside of it-- I'm not kidding, lost silverware was heaped inside a wooden piano!  I still shutter.  But people clamored to hear us, many nights (some, it was a graveyard, truth be known)... People stayed until the last set, if not the last note.  Ms. Jordan did not.  If memory serves, I think she was there to pick up money owed to her from a previous engagement as she too was a regular performer in the notorious, seedy-run, well-attended, over-the-top nightclub-- the owners had a habit of "forgetting" to pay the musicians now and then.  When I introduced myself to her and thanked her for coming, she was pleasant but her demeanor conveyed she was not at all impressed by me. I became immediately that much more insecure.  Singers.  [Sigh]. I had known who she was for years, but it was apparent she had only heard of me through the staff at the club. I smile as I write this because she is a very dear, inspiring friend now.  

Fast forward to 2009.  I am the esteemed headliner at the famous Allerton on Michigan Avenue 

and I look out into the audience on a Wednesday night (not well attended, but a great night musically, that showcased the wonderful Kimberly Gordon as my featured guest), and I see THE Lynne Jordan, in a sexy booth, by herself, sipping a Manhattan, if I'm not mistaken, and smiling with this look of... well... approval?!  On my break, I go to her and in the absence of self-restraint, I throw my arms around her and say "I cannot believe it's you!  Thank you SO MUCH for being here to hear me!".  She was immediately amused by this.  Perhaps it was the fact that I snuggled into her booth and up against her like I was her long lost baby sister and just... stayed there... as I asked how she was... as if we were... well, sisters.  She had never heard of our sister-singer Kimberly Gordon.  I was shocked.  She enjoyed her.  I was thrilled.  From that day forward, a friendship and a sisterhood of song forged between Ms Jordan and this Flapper Girl.  She may or may not recall these details.  She has many admirers. I am but  one of them.

Why am I taking you down memory lane?  Over the years, I have found solace in the support --REAL SUPPORT-- I have received from the artist I am writing about.  She has shown me kindness and loving compassion during times of personal crisis, and she has made me feel lucky to be alive any time I have attended one of her shows.  She sings with her WHOLE heart.  She gives her WHOLE entity.  She reveals her vulnerability and her -I'm sorry- HYSTERICAL awkwardness as in the time at City Winery Chicago in April of this year when a full house is screaming as she enters the stage in a 1920's feathered hat, and her first words were "Thank fucking god you people showed up".  I love her for her honesty, her bravery and her ruby voice of fire.  I love the way she looks out for her band members, before herself-- always... as if she almost thinks she is lucky they work with her, when the truth is, as talented as they are, she has afforded them unique, musically (and monetarily) rewarding opportunities for which they should be forever grateful.  I love the way  she understands people-- her audience, her employers and herself.  She knows how to promote herself without sacrificing her character.  She knows how to sing a Rolling Stones song ("Sympathy for the Devil"-- her version gives me chills!) without apprehension.  She is an entertainer.  But she is also a very complete, sincere and aphoristic individual that can both dominate and captivate an interaction from the stage or in conversation.  She has talents beyond her admission.  And I am so grateful she is my friend and proud she is someone that believes in me and my dreams to be a singer of "substance" to the world.  

The first week of July, two Chicago name-singers are appearing in Manhattan as headliners.  Tuesday July 2nd, Lynne Jordan will be unveiling her Chicago-praised Nina Simone concert at City Winery of NYC and four nights later, yours truly will be headlining the well-known Metropolitan Room of NYC on Saturday, July 6th at 9:30pm.  Our shows, though very divergent in material and style, have something of a commonality: it is Independence Day between both of our debuts at these venues... Lynne Jordan, gloriously interpreting the music of a HIGHLY independent American icon (I saw her show in Chicago- it is FABULOUS), Nina Simone, and Erin McDougald, the once-ballerina-turned-serious-jazz-artist, performing original jazz compositions and -challenging- obscure songs by jazz greats with some of New York City's most respected luminaries in a show called DON'T WAIT UP FOR ME... has bridged the gap of dreamer-divas and song-sisters and carried the thoroughfare of Chicago's talent into an east coast niche.  We are both independent women who live our lives through and for music.  We have both sacrificed a lot to be able to live this life of low-acknowledgment, dodgy pay, and self-doubt.  But we belong to no one.  We sing what we love and we say why we love it and we garnish the songs an audience may or may not know with our individuality-- an ingredient so many in the commercialized world of entertainment have forsaken.  We pay our own way across country and persuade musicians to be gracious with what we can afford to pay them while we work for the door, and we feel... lucky... that we have people who will pay $10, $15, $20, $30... $100 for a show to see us for 70 minutes while, all the while, we intrinsically think "I hope I am making them happy".  Whereas artists have crystalized the definition of narcissism in some ways, we paradoxically define the ultimate desire to make others happy.  It's sick, I know.  And I am constantly shamed by understanding this about myself -ha- but... no great artist ever existed without (secretly or not), vying for the approval, if not desire to alleviate the sadness of others through his or her art.  I realize the porn industry brings instant gratification and the music industry brings long lines of waiting (if we are lucky!) for clothed "entertainment", but nonetheless, there is a basic human connection that music engenders between strangers.

Here is my proposal [Bribe]:  If 70 people -anywhere- rsvp tickets to both LYNNE JORDAN AT CITY WINERY IN NYC JULY 2nd and ERIN MCDOUGALD AT METROPOLITAN ROOM NYC JULY 6th and send THIS BLOG your confirmation info before July 1st, you will be invited to a -highly secret- VIP party in CHICAGO with high-end catered food, champagne, wine, spirits galore and award-winning R&B and grammy-winning jazz with both Lynne and Erin singing for 3 hours before 2013 ends.  

This will be a VERY posh, very envious event.  So, if you are a music lover, a Lynne plus Erin supporter and an adventurous spirit [in the name of live music, that is] kind of a person, I think this offer is for YOU.  Come to NYC.  See two great, divergent shows of exquisite live entertainment.  Get rewarded for your loving support by attending a KICK ASS private party, 

later, in Chicago, that will include... well... a lot of awesomeness, 

least of which is two of your favorite Chicago singers performing a relatively private concert of your

 requests while you are wined and dined in spitting distance with complimentary press photos of the night.  Just sayin'.

The Perspective on True Love from a Labeled "Drama Queen"

Stormy love affairs are often the subject of soap operas and epic sagas in literature.  Hollywood makes more money off of the "personal lives" of their elite stars than they do from the films the stars appear in
--the Western world at large, devours the scandals and seductions of interchangeable celebrities and pop-stars du jour.  The internet is flooded with gossip sites and forums that allow 12 year old girls to idealize the shapes and pretentious schticks of glorified "popular girls" like the Kardashians and 27 year old guys to ogle and judge the relative hotness of such televised sensations with the deluded belief their lives emulate that of reality shows that have nothing to do with reality.

But when your legal assistant is often running to the bathroom in tears or seen with her on-again-off-again beau who allegedly swats her in and out of his life like a spastic ping pong ball, people will instantly say "so much 'drama' with those two".  The dismissive and judgmental phrase implies the emotions and happenings between the said couple are somehow less serious than what one might feel about his or her own life issues.  There are people who are adept in avoiding drama at all cost.  And yet, I'd be willing to bet, those people are the cause of much heartache to someone else who just wants to be close to them but doesn't get the chance.  Drama is not TNT, it is life.

I am a person who takes offense at the liberal use and misuse of the word "dramatic".  Being animated is not necessarily being dramatic.  As someone who "gets noticed" even when I am just fixing a bobby pin in my unwashed hair at the neighborhood deli, I find the attention upon me is often construed with accusations of causing my own drama.  It has troubled me in recent years and made me acutely aware of watchful eyes and disingenuous people.  I have been accused of drama in my most vulnerable moments and my most unmemorable interactions of good intention.  I have learned that being called dramatic can easily be a stigma placed on people who are demonstrative and emotionally open.  Somehow, people who are openly sensitive or perceptively interested in the feelings and reasoning of others, are at more "risk" for being labeled a drama queen or overly-emotional or too-sensitive.  And yet, people who are quick to detach from situations are seen as measured and rational.  The ideas contradict the nature of humanity, which, essentially, is not JUST the survival of the fittest but also the ability to be empathic and, yes, vulnerable.

There are those who think love is something that should come easily and calmly.  I always wanted that kind of an experience.  While finding love has never been especially difficult for me, making it last has always come with a lot of conditions, which, in the end, doesn't feel like love, it feels like... pain.  And this is where I hear "You have so much drama! Don't you want a relationship that is just easy?".  Anyone would.  But how many real relationships are actually easy?  I know many people who have barely uttered a harsh word to the other, but live a quiet, static and joyless existence.  I know couples that do everything together and are the "perfect match", but one if not both often complains regularly to their buddies that they are tired of keeping up appearances.  I know couples that adore each other but suffer in private with tense evenings and sorrowful mornings as they struggle to conceive a child.  --I know marriages that have ended because of it.  I know couples that have lost a child and never found themselves again, and live very catatonic lives behind closed doors.  Do people call their lives "dramatic"?  Hell no.  But when a somewhat glamorous woman and a debonaire older man genuinely love each other -passionately and openly- and argue with the same fervor, people are salivating to judge them as dramatic or... unserious.   And popular opinion leaks into the background of each person's rational; somewhere along the way, removed family members or nosey acquaintances can provoke a doubt in each person, and that doubt becomes the premise of altered behavior, unfounded assumptions, and tainted perspectives that inflate any issue at hand.  And these are everyday people who are not on television or in tabloids.  So imagine the celebrities who finagle their lives around the roar of the crowd that makes or breaks their People's Choice Award nominations.

Love is hard.  Being in love is wonderful; staying in love takes patience, understanding, empathy and thoughtfulness.  This goes for two farmers in rural Iowa that have been married 48 years, and the 48 year old business moguls on Wall Street, as well as the broke 23 year old actors that are living with their in-laws for the first 2 years of marriage.  And it goes for the jazz singer and high powered attorney that have brought out the absolute best and the absolute worst in each other.  Some believe that a happy median is always the answer.  When a person is wired to feel things strongly and unabashedly, that person is unlikely to find content with another person who does not experience things in that manner.  The dynamics of passion and chemistry are intertwined with psychology and character, yes, but the tumult to thrive inside the center of levity, versus the danger to allow the tumult to dictate the outcome of peace becomes the rumbling question.  I'm no stranger to dysfunction, and I have, for years, questioned my own sanity in the midst of love's chaos, and I have discovered my proclivity for loving difficult or unconventional or even "damaged" people... But who isn't damaged who has ever ventured to love unconditionally?  I know a loving couple that have thrived together for years-- the husband is severely schizophrenic and she is years younger than he is.  My godmother's son has Compulsive Obsessive Personality Disorder and has been medicated since early childhood.  Over the years, he has resisted medication at times or claimed he no longer needed it, but the proof is in the way he affects those who love him most when he is not medicated.  His relationships returned to a volatile state, he withdraws socially or fixates on unhealthy situations... He is now in his late twenties and in a healthy, loving, sweet relationship and realizes he can never go off this medication if he wants the benefits of this love as his personality is too painful to be around without such medical and therapeutic assistance.  He is a great man, soon to be a surgeon.  The bravery of choosing to acknowledge his need for help has salvaged his future in every single way.  The stormy patterns of love can often be traced to the imbalance of communication, empathy and outside support.

Napoleon's great love, the Parisian Josephine de Beauharnis, an older woman than he, was someone he lustfully pursued for significant time-- she resisted him from the beginning, with doubts of his sincerity and little attraction to him initially.  She was talked into marrying him, ironically, by her then-husband who was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce (who later was beheaded and Josephine, being his wife, almost joined him, but I digress).  To Napoleon's oblivion, she was flagrantly unfaithful throughout his time in Italy during the onset of the war in 1796; it was only when he decided to have affairs, that Josephine fell madly in love with him. (Drama, anyone?)... When he divorced her and married a younger woman around 1810, Josephine was crushed.  Through a string of defeats in battle, Napoleon was exiled to Elba Island about four years later and his wife and son left him.  It is said that Josephine did everything she could to get to Napoleon to join him on Elba Island, but ended up dying in her endeavor "of a broken heart"-- ACCORDING TO HER DOCTOR!   Napoleon escaped to Paris, where he picked violets from Josephine's garden and wore them in a locket until he died. Yes, he had syphilis, and was said to go crazy from it, but, whatever... he mourned the loss of Josephine until his death.  Stick with me, people! I'm just saying, Napoleon's "complex" might have gone beyond his short-height, ya know?!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMKy3Caci80


I reiterate.  Love is hard.  And while I have heard many times in my (ahem) young life, that "It shouldn't be this hard; you are settling for something beneath you- for what?!", I also recognize that it is in my nature to not settle for what is easiest.  People have accused me of settling for men that do not "deserve" me.  I think, in contrast to this perspective, no one knows more than I do, what it means to love without expectation, and in my tribulations as a "female jazz artist", and my determination to blaze my own trail (however overlooked it may be in the presence of majestic gardens of accomplishment I strive to live up to), I DO know that nothing great, in my life, at least, has ever come all that easily.  It's noteworthy to mention my resentment of this very fact has ignited bouts of (misplaced?) rage, depression and self-pity.  And let's face it, living out loud does not make for a docile spouse.  Sometimes I feel shame for not being a more malleable personality and then I overcompensate in exactly the wrong areas of life, such as letting acquaintances take full advantage of this very obvious insecurity.  But generally, my passion to live fully and love passionately trumps my wish for respite from this trying journey.  And to many, I suppose, that actually crystalizes my image as a person wrapped up in drama.  But to me, that thought reduces the deeper issue: I want to love and be loved --passionately, loudly, unapologetically and selflessly to the last breath.  And the cognizant romanticism I engulf my existence in does a lot to let me down when faced with words like "pre-nuptual agreement" and "estimated life-value" (in life insurance policies).  So... I am caught like the moon at dawn between the world of cynicism and the heart of optimism.  Where I have surrendered my dignity I have mightily defended the vow of love; I do not want to be Napoleon, carrying violets for a love that was
-too late realized- worth the inconvenience of imperfect situations.