Jamie Leonhart joined Preston Frazier for a song-by-song deep dive into her new EPs, ‘The Illusion of Blue (Side A)’ and ‘The Illusion of Blue (Side B)’:
PRESTON FRAZIER: I first saw back in 2011 singing with the Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata. In Chicago, I saw the group with Carolyn Leonhart, and then a few months later they were touring and they went to
Bloomington, Ill. I went down to Bloomington and saw you there in place of Carolyn. It was a fantastic show.
JAMIE LEONHART: So much fun. Oh my goodness. That’s like one of the most fun projects I’ve ever, ever been, you know, like, happy to be a part of.
PRESTON FRAZIER: It was such an unusual album and an unusual tour, but such a wonderful tour. And of course, your voice is incredible. And the singers were, were great. I think it was Victoria Cave and Dave Hope who were singing with you in Bloomington. It was a wonderful band. This year you’ve been busy with another wonderful band. You just got a break from the road from the Steely Dan tour which is opening for the Eagles. How was that?
JAMIE LEONHART: Fantastic. it’s such a pleasure, like a true pleasure to be invited and trusted, invited to sing with that material and trusted, that I’m going to be putting it forward in the way that was intended. I love those harmonies. I love just the energy obviously of being on stage with that group. Just wonderful. Wonderful.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Great. I’m, I’m glad to hear that. And, you’re back in New York now with your, students and, your other gigs, right?
JAMIE LEONHART: Yes, Teaching a ton right now. I’ve been really kind of sitting with like, ‘What do I want to do next’. I was supposed to have a show at Joe’s Pub this month but I delayed it because I didn’t know what the Steely Dan subbing schedule was gonna look like. And I didn’t wanna hold up Joe’s Pub, and I wanted to take the other gig if I had it. Because Joe’s Pub is just such a wonderful place to play that anytime that I’m there, like I wanna bring something to the stage. I’m rescheduling that.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Let’s discuss your Illusion of Blue projects. I assume those songs were something you’ve been working on for a while. Let’s discuss how that project came about.
JAMIE LEONHART: The Illusion of Blue was intended to be an album that was finished in early 2020, things got pushed a little bit, and it wasn’t necessarily a big concept album. It contains a handful of things that I love to sing in or stuff that I had done in [the] Estuary [stage show] that felt like it could live outside of that live project. Life got a little complicated, and then the pandemic started and I got sidetracked, which ended up being okay. But I got sidetracked and just really did not wanna create any music.
I know some people who were just loving the online performances but I felt very lonely and I felt very isolated and I didn’t wanna create. I threw myself into teaching more, doing voiceover work, and other things that I could do. And so I kind of had put it aside a little bit. most of the songs were there. I got to sit with it, which sometimes is terrible and sometimes is wonderful, and that’s why there’s a part A and a part B – because the whole album didn’t make sense as a cohesive album afterward. It didn’t make sense to me. And I took out two songs and I added one in and sat with it. I thought how do I order it so that there’s some cohesion in part A and then cohesion in part B, but that they don’t have to live together as a 12-song or album?
PRESTON FRAZIER: Was there any thought to putting it on a CD? I know CDs are kind of dead, but putting ’em both together?
JAMIE LEONHART: There is still a thought of putting it out in a physical product, probably not CD. I do still have the intention to do it on vinyl. It’s just that vinyl got so, um, overpopulated and expensive. I do still intend to do that because I think it would be nice as a side A and a side B of a record. A lot of artists are releasing singles and maybe it’s because of my age. I like to have the cohesiveness of a side as opposed to buying one song at a time.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Your project works so well with side A and side B. Tell me about “Estuary.” Saying that song is gorgeous doesn’t do it justice.
JAMIE LEONHART: I love that you say that. And because it signals to me that it is something that can be applied anywhere, like with, on any topic, onto any topic. And I appreciate that. “Estuary” came when I was creating this one-woman musical narrative, called Estuary: Artist/Mother Story. The idea of it was that in an estuary, there is a balance of salt water and fresh water. And if that balance goes off, then everything that lives in that area dies. hopefully, that doesn’t happen to us. the idea for me at that moment was trying to balance motherhood and artistry. I did a lot of research on estuaries so that in the song, it cites a lot of different things that occur within estuaries and musically it’s meant to feel like the water, it’s meant to feel like the flow. I love singing it so much, and I love the harmonies, and it feels incredibly personal but I think also offers an insight and perspective to any listener.
PRESTON FRAZIER: It does offer an opportunity for the listener to think about what’s being said, and how it applies to them, and the music is simply gorgeous. Was that the first piece that you recorded for the album?
JAMIE LEONHART: Oh, that is a great question! We spent two days, we spent two days at Reservoir studios. I got as much tracking done as possible in those two days. I did some of my vocals that day, but I left some of them to finish later on. I started with, the bigger band and then kind of peeled off into the smaller group stuff, just because it was easier to kind of, to time it like, I know that I need all these people.
I think we started with the bigger things like “Peace, Love and Understanding” and “Willow Weep For Me” and “Ill Wind,” maybe. I think we started with those three and then got to the smaller ensemble stuff after that.
I wanted something cohesive, and I didn’t want to have a record that’s slapped together or feel like I have to just singles. Maybe I won’t do my next project that way, but I didn’t know it was gonna be in two parts. I only knew that once I sat down and listened and was like, this, this doesn’t make any sense. Or, you know, like, I have to figure out how to make sense of it, because I want it in the world, but I want it in the world in a way that I feel happy.
PRESTON FRAZIER: That makes perfect sense. Yeah. The next song on the album is “Pearl,” which features Emily Hope Price.
JAMIE LEONHART: I wrote that for a friend who was going through a terrible divorce. I love researching something, and realized with that song that I am anthropomorphizing an oyster. I was thinking, imagine having this little grain of sand stuck in you. You’re just trying to get this thing to feel better. Then this beautiful thing comes out of it. It’s unbelievable that a pearl is even created. The context of it being a horrible thing that happens in your life but there could be something beautiful that comes out of it. And maybe it’s just you realizing that you’re stronger than you thought you were, or you know. And then I wrote the cello solo, and Emily Hope Price is just such a cool human being. She just sings on the cello. It is magical listening to her. We recorded the strings, separately, so I never had them with the horns. We recorded them at my friend Paul Brill’s studio.
PRESTON FRAZIER: The third song on the album is probably my second favorite, “Morning Glory.” It’s just, wow.
JAMIE LEONHART: I love it too. And it’s really like, I’m like, I can write a happy song,
PRESTON FRAZIER: Given what we’ve gone through in terms of the pandemic and the political unrest, it’s just good to have a song like that is utterly beautiful. Next is “Wanting,” which features Nels Cline of Wilco.
JAMIE LEONHART: It’s kind of spooky song a little bit. I think we recorded the bones of the tune without the solo on it. Michael [Leonhart], because he was producing the record, suggested Nels, who’s someone that Michael has done a lot of work with and was very friendly with. And so we kind of just let him have at it a little bit, like, went through it a handful of times. He played all these magical, spooky things, and we layered some of them. it’s not typical for me. I usually don’t have guitar, any version of guitar in my material. I’m, I just write more toward the piano but I loved having it as a textural element. It was cool to watch him kind of create. We did it in Michael’s studio.
PRESTON FRAZIER: And did Michael engineer the album as well?
JAMIE LEONHART: He did. He generally did most of it. We had some assistance from the wonderful people at Reservoir, also helping us out.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Yeah, it sounds intimate. Next is “Wash Over” The multi-track vocals are hypnotic.
JAMIE LEONHART: I’m with you. I get lost in it. I get lost in that song. And to me, it has that kind of similar quality. And it is that water-based idea with the vocal chorus similar to “Estuary” They’re somewhat parallel. I had the wonderful opportunity to work as a kind of artist in residence on the North Fork of Long Island in a partnership that Joe’s Pub They were super generous and just gave me the space to create. the only two requirements were that I do a show. That’s a pretty wonderful requirement, right? [Laughs.]
I would be working in that space and anybody could come in and listen if they wanted to. But it happened to be where there were a bunch of winter storms, and on the North Fork, it was churning like, the sea was churning, and this hotel is right on the water. Part of the dining area hangs over the water. The waves were coming up onto the windows, and there like, logs that were floating were banging into the side. I was sitting there thinking, wonder if this is okay? I wrote that song during that storm, because I was just thinking, what about the sea? Like, washing over and what it felt like to be protected and safe, and also kind of on that edge, on the edge of the unknown. It has that same kind of watery quality to it, like water movement quality to it.
PRESTON FRAZIER: The wall of multi-track vocals, with the chorus, it’s just hypnotic.
JAMIE LEONHART: That was me. and [Seal and Stelly Dan vocalist] Latonya Hall and Rebecca Haviland.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Side A closes with “Tender.”
JAMIE LEONHART: “Tender”, that was an extra track. that was a track that I recorded a year later.
There were one or two other songs that I cut that we had recorded some of. And I just kept thinking, I don’t know how to make this work. I don’t know if I like it. I thought I did. And “Tender” was a song that I wrote later. So it wasn’t even necessarily in the intention wasn’t necessarily there. But similarly, I felt like it there, as you said, I felt like this is an intimate and personal. I was thinking about the word, tender, and all the different definitions of it. And then I looked up the word in like 10 different dictionaries and find like all the obscure old English versions of it. Tender has all these different meanings. And so I went through each section kind of exploring it. but it’s, you know, the end of it is just about being exposed and showing your, the parts that you might not be comfortable showing, but they’re there anyway. It’s kind of the most naked song. There are no harmonies, except for the very last line.
PRESTON FRAZIER: There is obvious care, and rigor in the lyrics. One of the things Michael mentioned when I talked to him last year your use of language, and your literary background. Are there any players that you wanna talk about before we get to side B?
JAMIE LEONHART: You already touched on Roger [Rosenberg]. it’s so funny because he sits there and he is like, oh, okay, are we gonna go into the studio? He’s so mellow and he is so easy. And then he goes in and he blows like the world is on fire. I think I’m always like blown away when he starts to play.
PRESTON FRAZIER: let’s go to the Side B. It starts with “Peace Love and Understanding,” written by Nick Lowe.
JAMIE LEONHART: Oh my goodness. I guess it’s kind of obvious why I picked that song: I have always been a really big Elvis Costello fan. Elvis Costello made it famous. I’ve always loved it, and he has an incredibly driving version with post-like punkish guitar. The lyrics resonant for like, what our world has looked like in these past handful of years. I wanna sit down and dig into the lyrics. I’d like to share that story. I stripped away everything else. I love Elvis Costello’s version of it, but I also love the simplicity of the lyric too. And one of the things I love so much about Elvis Costello’s writing, like his own writing, is how complex his lyrics are, and how deep they are. You have to kind of like look at them and thing what’s that literary reference. They are similar to Steely Dan lyrics, the that they have so much to them. Elvis Costello sings on the end of it, which was my dream come true.
PRESTON FRAZIER: You also cover the classic “Willow Weep For Me.”
JAMIE LEONHART: I guess I just have always loved the song. I don’t think there’s anything super deep about it, but I’ve always loved the song and I love the groove. I’ve been doing it live for a long time, and Michael and I were playing with it and came up with, he came up with that bassline that really is so slinky and assertive at the same time. It rides under the whole thing. I love that it was a song written by a woman, which in those days that was not so common. It features Roger Rosenberg on baritone. The song reminds me of New York.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Next up is “Zephyr.”
JAMIE LEONHART: “Zephyr” was in Estuary. Zephyr is a kind of gentle, westerly wind that kind of blows things, but gently. So the idea is kind of taking this journey and seeing what’s gonna happen. You don’t know. And your compass might be broken, and your map might not be right. Yet you’re still gonna go and see what’s gonna happen, you know if you pull up that anchor and you take your ship out, but you don’t abandon the rest of the world. That’s the idea behind it. I’m just such a fan of vocal harmony, that anytime I can get people in there, I try to – and that’s similarly Latonya and Rebecca singing the harmonies.
PRESTON FRAZIER: That brings us to “Ill Wind.”
JAMIE LEONHART: It’s such an amazing tune and the writing is impeccable. What we did was incorrporate the verse at the top of the song. I love the idea of a verse, that kind of pre-story, pre-song story that sets up the story for us. There is one for “Willow Weep For Me,” I didn’t record it, but it’s cool.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Taking something old and making it new, but still keeping the essence of what it was. That is so fantastic. And that’s what makes the song of the album special. The next to last song is “Some Other Time.”
JAMIE LEONHART: Mark McLean is playing drums on that. He played on a couple of the tunes. This is a song that I couldn’t sing without crying for a long time. There’s just such longing in it. It had nothing to do with Estuary, but I started thinking about it through the lens of what we gain and what we lose as things change in our lives and the lens of parenting. The lyrics are about where has the time all gone to haven’t done half the things we want to, oh, well, we’ll catch up some other time. that is devastating. Michael plays that gorgeous solo on it. I should call him out as a soloist because he was really behind the piano. He didn’t play trumpet on anything else, he assigned it to other people and he was behind the piano for most of it – but he played the solo on this and it was just stunning.
PRESTON FRAZIER: It’s a wonderful project. I can’t wait for the vinyl.
JAMIE LEONHART: You’re inspiring me to write a new song and you’re inspiring me to get back to the album on vinyl, because I have it designed. I had everything and I just put it aside because everybody was doing vinyl and it was gonna take two years anyway. And so think I can get back on the train now. Of course, I have my teaching right now and the Steely Dan gigs too to keep me busy.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Thanks for your time. Would you share with us some of your favorite albums and music?
JAMIE LEONHART: It’s very hard to name five “favorite” albums, but here are 10 that are important that I continually revisit – Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom; Dave Douglas’ Charms of the Night Sky; Aretha Franklin’s 30 Greatest Hits (it was my intro); Bjork’s debut; Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley; Ella Live in Rome; Free to Be … You and Me; Duke Ellington’s Such Sweet Thunder; David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust; and Laura Nyro’s New York Tendaberry.
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