Cabaret Fringe

Interview: Jen De Ness

With 20 years experience as a performer, Jen is happy to be back in Adelaide, where she is about to perform her Cabaret Fringe show ‘See Things Like You’.

 

 

Jen DeWith 20 years experience as a performer, Jen is happy to be back in Adelaide where she lived for a short while. It’s the first time in the ‘City of Churches’ since 1999 when she moved to Perth, and on this visit her husband Bill Atkinson, who will provide guitar and backing vocals, accompanies her. Jen is used to varying styles of music and is happy as a solo performer or part of a small ensemble.

The show is mostly original songs, but we will be playing a changing medley of well-known jazz/blues ballads” says Jen, but in this show she has stripped everything back to an intimate performance which is heart-warming and funny. The show is based around a song that was inspired by a trip to a Tango Club and grew into Green Tile Tango. Developing on this theme Jen has incorporated several of her originals and a few classic swing tunes all framed within the Green Tile Tango Club.

We have been promised some smoky blues numbers and a few with a “Peggy Lee” influence to make sure nothing gets too serious. As a solution to being dumped, one of the characters in the club sings Forget about Pierre, a lovers lament with comic intent. Most of the song list is original songs but with Jen’s jazz and swing influences a few standards will be sprinkled amongst them. Jen says, “Whether I am singing my own songs or other composers’, singing is all about sharing the deep joy and universal connection of music and storytelling”

Jen is much in demand and has dates booked in Melbourne and back in Perth where she and Bill have also opened Ocean Studios and are planning to record some originals and Jazz standards. Hopefully next year she will again take her music overseas to London, where she was well received in 2010, and include Spain, France, Canada and NY in the tour.

Jen says she is looking forward to sharing the fun, laughter and beautiful music with the Adelaide audiences, and I for one am eagerly anticipating a musical treat.

Jen de Ness performs See Things Like You at La Bohème Fri 26 – Sun 28 June at 7pm.

TICKETS: Adult $25, Concession $20, Trev $20, CabFringe Artist $20.

Interviewed by Fran Edwards

Twitter: @Franeds

 www.jendeness.com

Read our review of Jen’s show, See Things Like You

 

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