February 2023: Commissioned to Write a Song

A cover of "Call Me Al." My band is doubling as a Paul Simon tribute on February 19th at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland. If you're in the area, come out!

A project of note: I was commissioned to write a memorial song for a friends' mother. The ask: "Create a song...a tribute to my mother's spirit and her love of a good song - a story song, a funny and sad and true song, not necessarily true to all the facts and facets of her life, but true to the emotional quality, the essence of who she was to me." How beautiful is that? We sat down together for a few hours, she shared stories about her mother, I asked some questions, and I left with pages full of notes. Then I sat down with the guitar. Which moments tell the story? How do you condense a person into a 4-minute musical thing? At times, songwriting feels more like a jigsaw puzzle than writing, lots and lots of trials and errors. I ended up writing two songs and got to share them with her last week, an afternoon I won't soon forget. When the final puzzle piece is in place, I hope to share them.

If you're interested in this sort of project, don't hesitate to reach out. 

I forward to seeing many of you this week on the road!

– Jenner

Fox Recommends

Eating Our Way to Extinction( film). If you're not in for the whole movie, this NY Times Article is also great. I love hamburgers as much as the next person, and I appreciated understanding how much decreasing our demand for meat and dairy can really make an impact. Read it, watch it!

Reservation Dogs. Natalie and I are in love with this TV series. It's profound and hilarious. Created by Taika Waititi ("Hunt for the Wilderpeople" & "Jojo Rabbit"). It's the first major TV series to feature all Indigenous writers and directors, as well as an almost entirely Indigenous North American cast and production team. 

Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon. By Malcolm Gladwell. I'm diving deep into the Paul Simon songbook in preparation for our tribute show, and I happened on this audio book. It's a real gem. The audio book format allows for interviews with Paul, recordings of songs that influenced his writing, and performances of his own songs. All wrapped in Gladwell's keen ability to weave interesting storylines. 

Reverend Claude Jeter.The best falssetto in Gospel music. This is a re-gift of Paul Simon's recommendation. 

P.S. Yesterday's Poem:

I called my Dad the other day,
and trying to sound older than my age
I said, "Dad it's a marathon, not a race."

He said, "well that might be the case,
but a marathon is a race.
And what if instead,
we thought of something
that wouldn't leave you so tired at the end."

I scratched my head for a day or so,
and then as if under my nose
I thought that any metaphor my Dad ever believed
had to do with floating downstream.

And so it was I thought
maybe I ought
to be like water and gravity,
slowly carving a river bed
without much thought for
behind or ahead. 

To make the jagged things smooth,
to be full of fish food.
Perhaps I never would see
the canyon walls come up around me.