Jayme Kelly Curtis
Jayme writes and records a rootsy blend of expressive folkloric jazz and Americana that has found radio fans worldwide and won the hearts of scores of reviewers.
| Likes: 1
| Songs | Plays | DL | Avg Rating | Ratings |
| Blues With The Boys | 21 | Y | 7.00 | 1 |
| Do the Dishes, Too | 26 | N | 0.00 | 0 |
| Many Seasons Ago | 29 | N | 0.00 | 0 |
Status
Jayme Kelly Curtis writes, records and performs an earthy blend of original "folkloric jazz" from her home base in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California. Equally at home in rock, blues, folk and jazz, Curtis's songs and powerful voice have won praise from listeners, press and radio stations, as well as worldwide airplay and placements in film and television.
Curtis's musical life heated up with the release of her debut CD, In A Rushing Stream, in 1999. She released Sugar & Sand: A Trilogy in Three Moods in 2004. Her third CD, Mid Life Chrysalis, was released in July of 2008. As a regional artist, Curtis averages 50 or more shows a year in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. She performs with a variety of Northern California musicians, most notably the international performer Ukulele Dick and LA session guitarist Michael Rosati.
Influences
"My goal as a songwriter is to create images that resonate strongly in the listener's mind where they can be freely interpreted through the lens of the listener's own experiences," says Curtis. "I try to place my personal experiences and snippets of stories into the framework of archetypal themes and mythologies. I try to use metaphor and imagery to move my subjects away from their narcissistic origins and into the universal. I draw from a wide variety of sources, including folk tales and dreams, the visual arts, theology and psychology. The key for me is not to tell, but to show. I think of my songs less as little movies than as aural paintings; some representational, others more abstract."
Background
A lifelong musician, Curtis hit the road at age 14, shunning high school to live in an artist's community and study fingerstyle guitar with Rolly Brown, a student of the legendary Reverend Gary Davis. Early in her career, Curtis earned local recognition with several rock bands, through her solo act, and as part of an acoustic duo in Southern Colorado. Her deep interest in blues and jazz lead to a five-year stint at the Iron Springs Chateau Melodrama Theatre, where she absorbed a jazz repertoire both standard and offbeat, and began perfecting her expressive vocal style.
Curtis's formal education includes a serious study of vocal performance, music theory and poetry at Colorado College, and film and television production at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She holds a Master's degree in mass communication from the University of Denver.
Original Songs: 706
Plays: 35510
Listeners: 11537