From the time she could speak, Jennifer Filzen has been singing. Over time, she moved from performing popular standards to creating her own lyrics, drawn from her life.
As a child, her musical talents wowed friends, family, and ultimately, professional choral groups that featured her performances throughout the East Coast. Trained in opera and jazz, her passion for different musical genres has allowed her to blend eclectic influences into one unique voice. Her vocal power and nuances reflect her love for Bossa Nova, Folk, Flamenco, World Music, Jazz standards, Classical, and contemporary popular music.
Singing wasn’t enough! She nurtured other talents as well, namely dancing and drumming. For more than 20 years, Jennifer has performed many different styles of dance, and was the drummer in her first band, “The Bland”.
Destined to be a singer, however, Jennifer is finally turning her first love and talent into ambition. A combination of destiny and determination led her to begin work on her own musical expression, while partnering with guitarist, Antonio Tinsay, and one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s top producers, Vince Hudson.
Her sound, developed with guitar pro Antonio Tinsay, blends clean, acoustic quality with sensual and soulful vocals. When their work is combined with Vince Hudson’s talents, their music gets toes tapping and fingers snapping. Jennifer Filzen’s powerful voice and lyrical sincerity are just a few of the qualities that will draw you to this emerging artist.
Here is an article about Jennifer Filzen from HIU Magazine, May, 2007:
Hitting the Right Notes
Jennifer Filzen has always loved singing, but lately her interest in music has amplified dramatically. In 2006 she sang in The Big CAHUna Band at NAHU’s Convention in San Francisco. Then she started writing lyrics. Then she met a musician and formed her own group. Now she’s releasing her first album of original songs this month.
It’s been a big year.
“I kind of fell into this,” she said. “I’ve been singing since birth—I went to college on a music scholarship singing opera, then I ended up getting an education degree and getting a master’s in history. But I missed the whole creative side. So after I finished my master’s degree, I started doing more creative things like jazz singing and jazz and tap dancing. I’ve been formally trained in opera and jazz, but I like everything—pop and jazz and hip-hop.
“The thing that really got this whole thing rolling was that I went through a divorce. I needed to purge some emotions, so I started writing poetry for the very first time in my life. April of last year was the first time I ever wrote poetry.”
While surfing on Craig’s List, she noticed a musician who was looking for a female lyricist with a unique voice. She responded and soon met him at Starbucks, where their styles clicked. That was May; by summer, they’d started working on composing music.
All of their work is the guitarist’s original music and Filzen’s original lyrics. Soon after meeting, the two found a producer with 20 years of industry experience. Filzen stepped into the recording studio for the first time on September 11 to begin work on an album.
“It comes pretty easily to us,” she said. “What’s so amazing is it’s come together so easily, especially for someone who’s never done this before.”
The 11 songs on the album range from jazz to folk to techno to dance, upbeat and introspective, a collage of styles and moods. “It’s everything but country,” say says. “And I don’t really do rap.”
Every song is dominated by Filzen’s clear, smooth tones. She’s been called “a happier Alanis Morissette,” with other listeners comparing her to singers from Sheryl Crow to Jewel to Norah Jones and Joni Mitchell.
“I apparently have a unique enough sound that nobody tells me the same one,” she said. “People ask what kind of style it is, and I say it’s hard to put myself in any category and harder to fit my music into one.”
She calls her music “inspirational.”
“I’ve gone through some stuff, and here’s what I’ve learned from it,” she said. “I’ve learned to let go. I’ve learned a lot about love. It’s all positive stuff.”
The order of things, she admits, is “a little backwards.” She and her guitarist have created an album before creating a band. Other than the guitar, the instrumental parts of the album are added electronically. But after the release of the album, Filzen will begin assembling a full cadre of drummer and bass and organ players. By fall she hopes for live performances with a full band.
In the editing process now, she’s been focusing more on polishing and promoting the first album than creating more music.
“It’s easier to write something when you’re sad than when you’re happy,” she said. “And I’m really happy right now. I do want to work on a second album, but everything you do has its ebb and flow. I went through this huge rush of creativity, and now that creativity’s going to start taking a backseat to promoting.”
She started a record label—Asilomar Records—because she didn’t want to wait for an existing label to discover her. (The photos on the album were taken in Asilomar Beach on the Monterey Peninsula. “Asilomar” means “refuge by the sea”.) The first album is called “Sirena,” which is “mermaid” in Spanish. Filzen realized two years ago that, working with supplemental benefits, she was losing out on the entire Latin community because of the language barrier. So she started taking Spanish.
“Now that I’ve improved my Spanish, I’ve improved my business,” she said.
She’s threaded Spanish through her music as well, though it’s only a light smattering.
She credits her family for instilling a sense of adventure in her. Her mother, Lydia Hawke, is an author with three books published, one of which is in the process of being turned into a feature film, “Firetrail”, scheduled for release this summer.
“I thought, ‘My mom has followed her dream… so why shouldn’t I be following mine?’”
To find out more about Filzen’s music or to order a CD, visit www.jenniferfilzen.com.
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