Deep vibes at The Davis station T; Missing my train is all Jenn taranto's fault!

As I entered the Davis Square T Station (Subway Station in Boston) I heard what had to be a mistake for the music was much to sharp and too dramatic to be simply a Muzac track pumping though industrial speakers in this cavernous cold concrete tube. As I inched closer to the turnstile it just kept crawling under my skin. My pace quickened to see where this was coming from.

As I descended the escalator a thin young woman was strumming away at her guitar. A few bars passed where I thought she would inch up to the mic and compliment the mood of the sounds with words….but she was too immersed in the feeling of where they came from. It was clear that on the surface that this was just another street musician performing at a Subway stop…nothing new in Boston or New York or wherever there are crowds that congregate…but then again it also seemed quite out of place.

In other words, and when the lyrics seeped out, I had the urge to look around for hidden cameras. Was this a joke? This was no mere street musician, this was an artist. And she was damn good. So good that I missed the train I had previously been huffing and puffing to catch.

Now for the second train, I had a choice, a choice made easier by some ongoing moody and sometimes darkly honest songs. I chose to stay. Another train gone. I was lulled into a trance by the music and voice and passion of Jenn Taranto.

She noticed I had stayed on by tipping her head in a quiet salute and thanks for staying just to hear her music. I dropped a bill in the hat and along with it, a note telling her how much I enjoyed her music and to please e-mail me….that I’d like to write a story. The truth is I wanted to know just how did she end up at this station? What was that life all about?

A month later after e-mailing and keeping in touch I reunited with Taranto, but this time for a one-on-one interview at a popular nearby coffee house named The Diesel Cafe.

What I learned was quite a story;

Born in Medellene, Columbia, Jenn was adopted at 3 months old by a family in New Jersey. That was really my first burning question since she looked Latina. So really, she’s been in America all her life which helped to explain why I could not detect an ounce of an accent on her. She grew up in a suburb called Allendale, new Jersey.

As an only child Jenn lived a good life, one that she even admits would have been probably far different had she been raised in Columbia. Her earliest introduction to music came from her parents having the radio on on an almost constant basis. By the 80’s she took to Prince, Madonna, and then along came Paula Abdul and Tori Amos. Explains Taranto; “Paula was just an amazing all around entertainer and Amos sang about the intricate details of her most personal relationships. Which was astounding to me. Opening up like that, seemed so freeing!”

By 9 she had hit the Piano lesson set and began impromptu recordings of herself. Early on she learned not too stray from the valuable lesson of honest story telling as Amos did. Keeping it real and personal, Taranto will mine any subject no matter how banal. She’ll sing about personal relationships and love which are nothing new in songwriting but will even sing about a Grandma who died recently (“Catherine”).

There’s another song about her and her boyfriend of two years. That particular song is about how good or not good she is. The song is called “There’s no one like you”. “Month of June” is a song about an ex (her first serious boyfriend). It’s about knowing what she did, as to why it broke down, and how she feels that he is with someone else right now. By 17, Taranto got up from the piano and grabbed a guitar. By 21, she was writing her own music to go with her poetry. Now she’s 24. So in reality Taranto is still new at this game and yet visibly comes across as a veteran.

Music is it. She knows it. She’s tried other things. Ballet in high school, theatre in college. But a degree in communications and culture led her to further know that expressing herself was paramount and how to get her words out to make a dent in the populous is her current challenge.

Translation; MAKING IT. Again, way easier said than done. As with all artists, here is where life gets in the way. Things that have nothing to do with her music and yet have everything to do with potentially derailing her from making it, playing it and continually creating it.

The challenges run the gamut. Not all seem dire but they all chip away at a window of opportunity when an artist is young, hungry and committed. But the time ticks away when your dealing with;

A. A poodle named Pickles who is blind. She had to put him down recently, so there was the fallout of that decision.

B. She’s trying to make it in Boston. Pay the rent. Eat. Keep a job.

C. Her mother is having kidney problems. There might have to be a major operation.

I could go on but it would just get too depressing. So how does one make it while attempting to juggle the realities that life tends to throw yur way?

You hit the road and ask to play anywhere at any time. She plays at places like the Lizard Lounge and another place called Toad in Cambridge. When she plays at those places, she plays for about two hours and they pay her about $50 total and she can sell her CD’s. At Lizard, she gets $50/hr. plus drinks and discounts on food and drinks. There’s another place called Skybar in Summerville, which is not very hard to play and they’ll actually put anybody in there, but you have to bring people there to get a percentage of the door. C’mon Skybar, give these artists a break!

Then there is always the subway stops. At first I cringed when I asked if playing that venue was demoralizing. Turns out that to Jenn that viewpoint couldn’t be further from the truth. Get this; At the T, or Subway, sometimes she could make as much as $500/wk. playing for the commuters. Believe it or not. Just by putting her little hat out, people donate that much. Course that’s a lucky week. A week when yu are fortunate enough to get to play at a lucrative stop. Turns out there is a pecking order here. If another musician betas yu to it, it is rude to compete and set up at the same station. So this means getting there at 5am sometimes.

Jenn usually plays for about 3 to 4 hours or until she gets to about $100 in donations. The rest of her money comes or came from such temp jobs such as a filing job at Liberty Mutual, once as a catering assistant at The Hyatt, answering phones at numerous corporate lobbies, and taking care of patients with Alzheimer’s at the Alzheimer’s Institute.

But playing for donations in the subway tops them all. There she can zone out. Be into her music. And hone her craft. Watch for reactions to her songs. See what works. So in other words its more than just the money. In a sense she is crafting both her image and marketing herself not to mention road testing her strengths and weaknesses.

This is all well and dandy if yu are calm enough to read into the faces of yur crowd, something that admittedly came not so naturally to Taranto. “At first I was a bit terrified of playing in public” she explains about her first public showing in Central Park. She put her hat out and strummed the guitar and managed to sing for 15 minutes before packing it all up and rethinking her trajectory to become a musician. “It was very hard to do but eventually I got comfortable.”

On a bad day at the subway she only makes $20.00. But there are positives to playing for the masses, even if they are sipping their morning brew and yapping on their cell phones. One morning there were some “borderline homeless street people” who always seemed to show up for Jenn and as they were listening, they were literally crying. She thinks it hits them hard because there are elements in her music that speak to loneliness and solitude.

While playing regularly at the The Downtown Crossing Station, a guy who obviously was a little bit slow or had some mental issues kept listening to her for weeks or months. One day, he came up to her and said “Your music has helped me a lot. I tried to kill myself once but your music helped me get through it”. So there are those moments where Taranto is hit hard with the reality of what her music means or can mean to people. A few weeks later Jenn bumped into the same guy, who apparently is now sober and coping with the world…..with Taranto’s music as his soundtrack.

Right now Jenn is chiseling her look and branding her image with a great quirky, cool look. She’s sort of got this curly hair with purple highlights. She had her septum pierced after she saw two girls and these photos of them pierced so she thought she would try that. Her ears are pierced. She sort of looks like a sassy, earthy-cruchy but modern swashbuckling poet pirate. Colorful, in control and passionate.

The high seas await as her vessel sails off into uncharted waters May 5^th at the Lizard Lounge. There, her new CD will debut (yu can get a taste of it and order it at www.jenntaranto.com). She is hoping for a turnout of about 350 people. But she will play for anybody.

What is for sure is that those who show and those who will listen….will be truly blessed.