{"id":28239,"date":"2018-03-23T03:40:54","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T10:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=28239"},"modified":"2018-03-24T14:54:29","modified_gmt":"2018-03-24T21:54:29","slug":"music-that-entertains-heals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/03\/23\/music-that-entertains-heals\/","title":{"rendered":"Music that entertains, heals"},"content":{"rendered":"

(photo from jaegerreidmusic.com<\/a>)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

An unexpected kindness reignites a passion for music, which offers an outlet for grief, as well as a new career path. A chance meeting turns into a mutually supportive, productive and enduring musical collaboration. We often forget how much of a role luck \u2013 fate, destiny, whatever we call it \u2013 plays in our lives. For Judi Jaeger, two occurrences stand out, with relation to her singing and songwriting.<\/p>\n

From Way Up Here<\/em> is Jaeger\u2019s first CD with Bob Reid; she has two prior solo recordings. Released last summer, From Way Up Here<\/em> features original music by both Jaeger and Reid, as well as covers of some of their favourite songs.<\/p>\n

While Reid \u201cis a California native and a fourth-generation Californian on his father\u2019s side,\u201d Jaeger told the Independent<\/em>, he lived in \u201cCalgary for awhile in the \u201970s and also hitchhiked across Canada along the Trans Canada Highway in 1969.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaeger, who lives near San Francisco, moved to California more than 20 years ago, after living in Seattle for almost 10 years, she said. \u201cWe moved here because of my husband\u2019s job. We settled here and this is where we have raised our two children, our son Nick, who is 19 and a freshman in college (first year), and our daughter Emma, who is a junior in high school (Grade 11).\u201d<\/p>\n

But Jaeger was born in Ottawa. And she spent her teen years in Vancouver \u2013 \u201cI went to Eric Hamber High School \u2026 where I sang in the swing chorus, played the flute in band class and was in some of the musicals\u201d \u2013 as well as attending University of British Columbia. \u201cI am still Canadian deep in my soul despite living in the States for many years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jaeger learned to play guitar when she was 15 \u2013 her brother, who is five years older, taught her the basic chords. \u201cI played and sang folk songs for myself, and for friends when I went to Young Judaea summer camps,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I was 20, and very busy \u2013 I was in college (I went to UBC for a few years and Carleton in Ottawa) \u2013 I put it away and didn\u2019t touch it for 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI picked it up again through some serendipity when a woman who was working for us as a nanny took my guitar, unbeknownst to me, to be restrung and presented it to me saying, \u2018Here it is, now you can play it again,\u2019 because I had been making noises about writing a song to deal with the lingering grief over my mother\u2019s passing a few years before.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I started playing it again after many years. And then, I wrote a song about my mother, which is called \u2018Greedy Crime.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know anything about songwriting,\u201d she admitted, \u201cI just wrote a song \u2013 sat down and wrote the lyrics in one sitting and then, about a week later, sat down with my guitar and wrote a melody.\u201d<\/p>\n

One listen to this beautiful and moving song, which was released in 2007, and it\u2019s obvious that Jaeger has natural talent. But she wanted more from herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I had written a song,\u201d she said, \u201cI decided to learn something about songwriting, so I began to take a class at a local guitar shop in Palo Alto, Calif. From there, I began going to open mics to sing and play my original songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaeger played in a band for a few years and was in another duo for about five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough my songwriting community, I learned about an acoustic music camp for adults called California Coast Music Camp,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is a nirvana experience where about 100 adults attend a one- or two-week camp to study and play acoustic music. You can learn a new instrument or work on the one you play already. There are concerts and workshops and classes. It is collaborative, supportive and educational all at once. It was the best experience. I went about five times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is where I met Bob Reid. He was one of the instructors at the music camp one of the years I went. On the last night of camp, they always have an enormous Beatles jam. Imagine 40 or 50 people sitting around in a large circle, playing guitar, ukulele, banjo, mandolin, bass, etc., and singing songs together. So, I was standing on the outside of the circle, singing, and Bob was walking around the circle singing harmony with people (he is particularly talented at harmony singing, and part of what people love about our duo is our blend) and he just happened to stop next to me and we hit a note that made him look at me and say, \u2018wow.\u2019 That was the extent of our meeting at the camp, but we ran into each other a few more times in the Bay Area, always at music camp events and there was always playing and singing at these events, and people kept saying, \u2018Your voices sound so good together.\u2019 So, after awhile, we decided to do something about it, and we formed a duo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reid has sung and played guitar and many other instruments for his whole life, said Jaeger. \u201cHe grew up in a musical house \u2013 his parents owned a record store in Berkeley, Calif., his mother was a singer and songwriter in the \u201960s and \u201970s, and his father was a gospel music promoter,\u201d she said. \u201cBob has played music for adults and for children, in schools and in concerts and at festivals all across the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaeger also grew up in a \u201chome that was filled with music,\u201d as well as \u201cthe beautiful cultural aspects of being Jewish, like wonderful food, family gatherings and loving extended family,\u201d she said. \u201cI went to Young Judaea summer camps for years, where there was always singing and dancing and plays. My mother played guitar, my brother played guitar, and my father loved music. We had a record player and lots of records. So, while I am not religious, and not even practising any faith, I have very warm feelings about Jewish culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaeger is the daughter of Max Roytenberg \u2013 an occasional contributing writer to the Jewish Independent<\/em>, and the proud father who alerted the JI<\/em> to Jaeger\u2019s latest CD \u2013 and Lorraine Davidson, who died in White Rock, in December 2004, at the age of 71. \u201cAnd she had been declining for at least 10 years,\u201d shared Jaeger. \u201cSo the \u2018loss\u2019 began when she was very young. She had a degenerative brain disease like Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt cheated and thought she was cheated, too, and I felt angry that she didn\u2019t get to enjoy her senior years or her children and grandchildren as she might have \u2013 my children were 3 and 6 when she passed away. I carried those feelings around for a couple years. One day, I just started thinking about this idea, that I would write a song about how I was feeling, even though I had never written a song before. I thought about this for a few months. I love music and always have, and I\u2019ve always loved to sing. Then my guitar came back into my life with fresh strings (as I explained) and this gave me my outlet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought that maybe if I talked about how I was feeling that it might help other people who were dealing with or had dealt with the same problems and feelings,\u201d she explained. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many times after a concert when we have sung \u2018Greedy Crime\u2019 people have come up to me and told me how much it meant to them, how they had experienced something similar and how moved they were. I had previously recorded \u2018Greedy Crime\u2019 and included it on an earlier solo album but that was many years ago and the song was overproduced. Bob is the one who encouraged me to include it, sung our way, on our first album as a duo because he feels it is such a powerful song. And, with his harmony, it is even more powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CD<\/a>Another powerful song on From Way Up Here<\/em> is Jaeger\u2019s \u201cLove Caught Her,\u201d written for the organization Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse (CORA). Jaeger was a lawyer, until she retired from the profession in 1997.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a family law attorney,\u201d she said, \u201cI saw domestic violence in my practice. It was there. I began to support my local domestic violence prevention organization (CORA) and I became friends with the executive director. Many years later, when she learned about my songwriting, she asked if I would consider writing some songs for them, and coming to perform them at a fundraiser they were having. I agreed and I wrote two songs for them in 2011. One of them, \u2018Love Caught Her,\u2019 is on our Jaeger & Reid album; the other song has never been recorded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, a couple years ago, the director asked if Bob and I would come to sing at an event they were having to honour people who had died from domestic violence. It was called Voices Not Forgotten. We agreed. When we couldn\u2019t find just the right song to sing at this event, we decided to write it instead. Bob and I wrote a song called \u2018Not Another.\u2019 We have played it for CORA two years in a row at the same event. There is a video of this song on our Jaeger & Reid Facebook page, facebook.com\/jaegerreidmusic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaeger and Reid play \u201chouse concerts and listening rooms in many different cities in the United States.\u201d The pair came to Vancouver and Salt Spring Island last August, soon after their CD release, and they are hoping to get back to Canada this year.<\/p>\n

From Way Up Here<\/em> was recorded by multiple-Grammy-nominated producer Cookie Marenco at OTR Studios in Belmont, Calif. The title track, explained Jaeger, \u201cis a song that was written by Malvina Reynolds (who wrote \u2018Little Boxes\u2019 and \u2018Turn Around\u2019 and some hits for the Seekers) and she gave the lyrics to her friend Pete Seeger, who wrote the melody. Bob, who was close friends with Pete and Toshi Seeger for 25 years, had always wanted to hear that song with harmony. It\u2019s his arrangement on our album and is a powerful song.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the original songs on the CD, Jaeger said, \u201cWe picked each for its story and its sound and then we brought in other musicians, all friends of either Bob or me, to add their own touch. We recorded so many songs when we were working in the studio that we have enough extra to almost release our second album. But, we have been writing new songs together for the past couple years now, so we have many new ones to record, as well. It is our goal to get our second album recorded and completed quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it at all compares to their first recording, it is an album to eagerly anticipate. For more on Jaeger and Reid, visit jaegerreidmusic.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(photo from jaegerreidmusic.com) An unexpected kindness reignites a passion for music, which offers an outlet for grief, as well as a new career path. A chance meeting turns into a mutually supportive, productive and enduring musical collaboration. We often forget how much of a role luck \u2013 fate, destiny, whatever we call it \u2013 plays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[788],"tags":[7977,7979,7978],"class_list":["post-28239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-bob-reid","tag-folk-music","tag-judi-jaeger"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}