Newtowners’ New Music Offerings

Make Unique Stocking Stuffers

 

By John Voket

Sure, you can walk into virtually every music or department store on the planet and pick up one of the new million selling CDs by The Eagles, Josh Groban, Alicia Keys or Jay-Z. But what about giving a gift of music this holiday season from one or more of your Newtown neighbors?

The latest musical offerings from four local talents provide a diverse range of highly listenable material whether it’s the provocative, folk/rock of Melissa Faith Cartoun; the adult contemporary stylings of actress/singer Jenna Von Oy; the edgy X-Country of Darryl Gregory; or the soothing chants and melodies of songstress Leesa Sklover.

Melissa Faith Cartoun: Rearview

Ms Cartoun’s self described “alt alt” music has the refined quality of Sheryl Crow, with Dylanesque lyrical content that is quite sophisticated, appealing to a wide audience. She came into her own while attending Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where she later recorded her debut release Rearview. 

Raised in Newtown and currently calling Boston her part-time home, she kicked her career into gear performing on campus at Vanderbilt, where she quickly developed a following. Ms Cartoun also put herself up in front of the most challenging audiences, often playing her guitar on the street corners of downtown Nashville, honing her performance.

In her junior year at Vanderbilt, she won a prestigious award for best singer/songwriter of the year, and also won the school’s “Battle of the Bands” competition, which granted her a spot in schools annual Rites of Spring music festival.

That event has hosted acts like Dave Matthews, Black Eyed Peas, and Guster. Ms Cartoun also recorded one of her songs with friend Mike Gordon of the band Phish, and that song, “25,” went on to win a place in the John Lennon Song Writing Contest.

As a child of several generations of musicians, she told The Newtown Bee this week that she was “destined” to perform. Her earliest memories are of singing during huge multi-generation jam sessions, but her destiny was fully realized as a high school creative writing student.

“I asked my dad, who is a bluegrass musician, to teach me a few chords on the guitar which facilitated my songwriting process. From there, I sat down with a Tracy Chapman song book and learned to play and sing.”

Ms Cartoun said she went into the recording process with Donnie Boutwell, a Nashville acquaintance and producer, “very close minded.” But through the recording process, she learned the many ways her simple guitar and lyrical contributions could be molded into material that would have much greater appeal.

“His ideas gave my songs lives of their own. He helped diversify the sameness,” she said.

Ms Cartoun is in the early stages of forming a touring band, and will play two shows in Iowa City in the coming weeks, including a set that will be recorded for the Iowa Public Radio series Java Blend.

Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of Rearview can check out samples and make an order through Ms Cartoun’s MySpace site, myspace.com/MelissaFaithCartoun.

Darryl Gregory: SHE

Mr Gregory’s roots in the music world are equally deep and diverse. He started out as a high school brass player graduating to become a music teacher, and eventually completing a graduate degree incorporating trombone and music composition.

But all along, Mr Gregory told The Bee, he was also playing guitar and following the career’s of contemporaries of the day like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.

“That’s when I started doing the band thing,” he explained. But a move to New York City immersed him in an environment where he quickly found himself performing in two different headline acts, while still pursuing his own work, taking small coffeehouse and club gigs as a solo singer-songwriter as well.

A developing following pushed him into the arena of home recording, which started as a hobby and has progressed to a part-time job. Today, four album projects later, Mr Gregory currently has a sophisticated 32-track digital workshop in his Sandy Hook home, which he hires out under the name Blue Cave Studios.

Claiming a love for classic country, Mr Gregory’s material falls into the alternative or X-Country genre, reminiscent of artists like Steve Earle and even Bruce Springsteen.

In a related vein, he is co-founder of The Sa-Reel Project with composer Sasha Bogdanowitsch. The mission of this new ensemble is to compose new works for an array of world instruments, western instruments and found objects (basically anything that makes a sound) and to combine the compositional philosophies of pop-world-avant that both he and Ms Bogdanowitsch have absorbed. And he’s passing his passion for music and performing forward as a music teacher in the Stamford school system.

While the lyrical content of some of his previous work, including his 1999 debut Cold Comfort Songs followed instrumental riffs and progressions, his newest project, SHE, primarily sprung from a foundation of lyrics developed long before the melody lines came into focus.

The sequential nature of SHE is designed to tell a story in several vignettes which capture the heart and soul of Mr Gregory’s maturation and life’s experiences. You can download his latest offering from iTunes, or order it from CDBaby.com.

Leesa Sklover: Orca Chantress Beluga Shaman

By day, Newtown resident Leesa Sklover-Filgate skates between several offices here in Connecticut and Manhattan, where she sustains a successful enterprise called Optiself, concentrating on counseling, intergrative healing and health. But she recently headed to the Pacific Northwest, putting together a first of its kind musical project featuring her own improvised world chant, and songs complimented by the natural sounds of whales, dolphins, wolves, bugs and birds in the wild.

Her latest CD, Orca Chantress Beluga Shaman, is a culmination of her life’s work, bringing many healing concepts together through musical creativity and transcendent style. Prior to the release of Orca, an earlier CD, Optiself, Science and Sound for the Soul, was geared as a soothing agent to get the sleep weary dreaming again. She has also written a musical off Broadway, called Mother Me Therapy, which debuted in NYC at the Cherry Lane Theare in June 2005. That project has a recorded soundtrack available as well.

In a chat with The Bee, Ms Sklover said her work is gaining popularity as a soothing accompaniment to the daily routines of those purchasing the CD, as well as a soundtrack for meditation and yoga studios. Orca Chantress Beluga Shaman is a collaboration with Jim Nollman, who contributed most of the nature sounds that can be heard as both tonal and rhythmic components on the disc.

“The idea of working with animal sounds is not unique, but I wanted to take it a step further, not acting upon the animal sounds but creating improvised music in a call and response type of format,” Ms Sklover said. “I don’t know of anyone who has taken that foundation and combined it with improvised chant.”

Her improvisational talents are most evident on the second track, “Humpback Kirtan – Wahay Guru.”

“On that cut, I made up the recurring chant based on the sound the humpback was making to me through this incredible human to animal contact,” she said. “Putting this on the stereo at home, say the first thing in the morning, is a great way to start the day.”

Ms Sklover said her attempt to further the peaceful coexistence between humans and animals will be ramping up in early 2008, when she is planning a series of concerts where she hopes to be able to create “interspecies,” improvisations in the moment at regional Audubon centers and public parks.

Obtain a copy of Orca Chantress Beluga Shaman and Ms Sklover’s other works by clicking the “products’ link at Optiself.com or through CDBaby.com/cd/leesasklover.

Jenna Von Oy: Breathing Room

One local resident remembers Jenna Von Oy as a childhood acquaintance here in Newtown. Recalling a fearless and natural performer with a huge voice emanating from a tiny body, that humble beginning has carried through to today.

Ms Von Oy, who is also a successful actress, television and film star, finally found her voice on CD with the recent self-produced release of Breathing Room.

“Making this album has been a risk I’ve fully embraced,” she relates on her website, JennaVonOy.com. “Breathing Room tells the story of the transitions I have gone through in the past few years. It is honest and raw, and I mean every word of every song.”

Beginning with the introduction, her own childhood voice reciting the poem “Little Pollywoggy,” Ms Von Oy’s debut moves through various moods, tempos and styles at one moment evoking comparisons to the likes of Roseanne Cash, and the next showcasing the articulation and range of a Broadway veteran.

The mostly adult-contemporary flavored material flashes back to her own childhood memories on “Underoos & Rollerskates,” and delves deeply into the abyss of mature insecurities on the heart-tugging “Letter to a Lost Soul.”

A November 8 entry on her MySpace blog celebrates iTunes “listing the new release among staff favorites - a MASSIVE accomplishment for an independent artist,” she noted.

Order Breathing Room through JennaVonOy.com or purchase and download it via iTunes.