Jami Jackson Performs at the ING NYC Marathon

Performing at the NYC Marathon on November 1st was a lot of fun!! The night before, I went to a Halloween party in Harlem, not too far from where I lived. Although I knew that I had to sing in the morning, I still wanted to take advantage of Halloween being on a Saturday. The Saturday night parties were bountiful! And it was even better to have an extra hour to party, since it was Daylight's Savings Time at 2pm on November 1st. So I had to take advantage. For Halloween this year, I was dressed up as Diana Ross. I had a gold dress and gold shoes and a cute wig. I'll post a picture of me in the next blog.

That Sunday morning, I had to wake up semi-early to get ready. I needed to be at the location at 125th and 1st avenue at 9:30am, but it wasn't far from where I lived. There was a forecast of rain in the morning, so the coodinators of the marathon said that we could come out after the rain ended to avoid destroying our equipment. I arrived at the location around 10am. However, it was so hard to get there! A lot of the streets were blocked off and as a result, there was a lot of traffic. We finally got on the FDR to the location. Once we got there, it was relatively easy to find parking and access the location. I had my volunteer badge and permit ready in case there was any trouble!

The location was basically the street where the runners were going to pass me. It wasn't a sectioned off area or nook. I set my equipment, an amplifier, microphone, and ipod, up behind where the onlookers were going to be. When I started performing, the people waiting for the runners started to get interested in me. One man who was part of the FDNY asked if I had auditioned for American Idol. I can't count the number of times people have asked me that!! It's a compliment though because they believe in my talent enough to make it on that show. A couple other people were interested in who I was as an artist, and some people were dancing to my music. I kept the show short, to about 30 minutes at a time. I would sing a couple of songs, and then pause, then a couple more. In the beginning of the marathon, a few people would run by at a time, so I sang when they were close to us. I decided not to sing for an extended period of time in the beginning. I was able to see the professional women and men athletes run in the morning. They were surrounded by cops and media. It was interesting seeing them and then seeing who actually won. There were so many runners who came after them! It seemed like a neverending number of runners. It was amazing seeing so many people run the 26.2 miles! I could never run that many miles at one time!

It was a great experience being at the marathon and being able to say that I performed for so many hardworking people. Running the marathon is a real feat, but performing there was even better for me!

Rehearsal for My First Show on November 10

David Berry and I have been working really hard to prepare for my show on November 10th! We've been rehearsing since October and have met for hours at a time preparing. David Berry is a talented pianist who will be accompanying me during the show. He is actually getting his Ph.D. in Classical Piano at Julliard. He has a great musical ear and he is very patient. He is also the musical director at All Angels Church in Manhattan. He has been a real blessing for me in this whole process. I actually found him through Craigslist (big-up to Craigslist! :) Although there are a lot of spam and crazies on Craigslists, sometimes you will find a real gem. David is exactly that.

I decided to do a show because I really wanted to have a chance to perform solo at a club. I have been performing all of my life and throughout NYC, but I have never performed my own set at a night club. I have mostly performed for other venues who were putting on their own productions and shows. I originally wanted to pull a whole band together to perform shows in the city, but it was too cumbersome to have a full band. Summer of 2007, I had tried to pull together a small band with a guitar player, bass player, and drummer, but even that fell through eventually. The bass player moved back to Israel and it was hard to replace him. I was trying to find band members who would play for me for free and split show money. However, when musicians are not getting paid, they are not as dedicated to the group and they have their own agenda and ideas for the group. It just got really messy and eventually I scrapped the idea.

The coordinator of LIFEbeat, Erika Banks, told me that she did a solo show with a pianist over the Summer. I wasn't even aware that there were many shows in NYC with solely piano and voice....I had just assumed that most shows consisted of a full band. Once I heard how successful her show was with just her singing and a pianist playing, I was convinced that I could do the same. So far, it has been a wonderful process. David is such a great player and in the spots where I am not singing, he makes up for it with the music. I picked songs that I could sing well without background vocals. I must say, that is the most difficult part of the process, singing songs with no background support. It really helps to take some of the work off the lead singer and have the background vocals pick up some of the slack. However, it is great practice to entertain a crowd with just my voice.

The picture above is the chord chart of my song, "I'll let you go" that we are going to perform on Tuesday. So that you can get a taste of what my show is going to sound like, I have uploaded the song "Greatest Love of All" from our rehearsal last week. I recorded the song on my mini recorder, so the quality is not the best, but you should be able to get a good idea of the song. I'm also going to post pictures and videos of the show after the show next week. If you're in NYC, I hope you can make it. If not, definitely look for pictures and videos next week!

The Battle is the Lords Solo

On Sunday, October 25, I sang "The Battle is the Lords", made famous by Yolanda Adams. I was actually singing the song in the place of another lead singer of our church. The other lead singer called out sick that morning with vocal issues and no one else in the choir knew how to sing the song. The speaker of the service had their whole sermon based on "The Battle is the Lords". So, I volunteered to sing the song and cover for the other singer. It turned out to be a really great selection! I didn't have a chance to practice the song, so I was hoping that I would be able to successfully deliver it. A lot of the church members came up to me after and said they enjoyed the song. I am glad that I was able to make a difference after such a short notice. My church makes CDs of the service, so I have an mp3 of the song.

Balloon Boy Story of the Day and Choir Rehearsal

The story of the day today was the 6 year old boy who was thought to be caught in a homemade balloon flying craft earlier this afternoon. It was such a bizarre story to hear about! I was very surprised to hear that a family had built this large aircraft from scratch - it was a 5 foot high and 20 foot long object. There was footage online of the balloon flying 50 miles in the air because everyone thought the boy was still in it. The sibling of the boy said that the boy took off inside the balloon in their house. Longmont, Colorado had to shut down one of their busiest airports to help save the boy and even the military got involved. The Colorado Army National Guard sent a UH-58 Kiowa helicopter and was going to send a Black Hawk UH-60 to try to rescue the boy. They also were working with pilots of ultralight aircraft on the possibility of putting weights on the homemade craft to weigh it down. An operation of this sort is not free; apparently the the Black Hawk helicopter was in the air for nearly three hours and the Kiowa helicopter was airborne for about one hour. The Black Hawk costs about $4,600 an hour to fly, and the Kiowa is $700 an hour. All of this media attention and cost came down to the boy being home the whole time. I was very relieved to find out that he was alive and safe. He ended up hiding in a cardboard box in the garage because his father had yelled at him earlier and for getting in the compartment earlier. It was such a wacky story, but I'm glad it ended well.

I also had choir rehearsal today at First Presbyterian Church. We sang "Jordan's Angels", "The Clouds' Mist", and "Halleluyah". We also sang Kirk Franklin's "My Life, My Love, My All". "My Life, My Love, My All" is one of my favorite songs of Kirk Franklin's. I especially love singing the alto part. I am a soprano, but the alto part of this song is particularly beautiful. It adds such nice harmony to the song. The words are also very simple, but easy to relate to. I love a lot of Kirk Franklin's music because of his choir and the words of his songs. My favorite song of his song, "Now Behold The Lamb". It's a Christmas song, but I can hear it any time of the year. I love the piano in the beginning of the song and the lead singer who begins sings with so much feeling. It quickly gets me into the Christmas spirit!

Overall, choir rehearsal was good tonight. We got through a lot of the music that we wanted to do. We are planning to go out for karaoke tomorrow at Duets. I'm going to take pictures because it's going to be a lot of fun! I'll post pictures in the next blog post.

FPC Choir and the Pastoral Installation Service in Connecticut

On Sunday, September 20, I performed with the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn Choir at First Congregation Church in Stamford, Connecticut. Reverend Dr. Cari Jackson, a previous interim pastor at First Presbyterian Church, was being installed as the Senior Pastor at First Congregation Church. It meant a lot for our choir to sing at her installation in Connecticut because she had been at our church for over 2 years and we all had a special bond with her. Pastor Cari has a way with words. Her sermons are so easy to relate to, you would think she was speaking to you personally. All kinds of people, young and old, all from diverse backgrounds, could relate to her words. It's amazing, actually, how well she could speak about God and his existence in our life. One phrase that she always closed with us was, "God is as close as your very breath. Breathe deeply and know that God's presence is with you".

Pastor Cari is not your typical pastor. She is a black, female, lesbian reverend who holds not only a Ph.D., but also a law degree. She is a lover of words and she writes poems when she is not preaching. The choir rode in a bus to the church in Connecticut and it took a little over an hour to get there. It was fun riding together in anticipation of the service. We really didn't know what we were getting into; we didn't know how the other church would be or how they would react to us. The First Congregation Church was established 365 years ago, in 1635. They had years and years of white pastors at the church. This service would be the first time that they had a Black, female, and gay pastor installed as Senior Pastor. It was truly a historic service. Read the press release.

During the service, we sang "Come, Let Us Worship the Lord", "No Ways Tired", "Order My Steps", and a few other hymns. I co-lead "Order My Steps" with Bertilla Baker, a great singer and actress. Bertilla has been a lead singer for the choir for many years and is a beloved member of the church. LaChanze FordJour was at the service and performed a song. She was the winner of the 2006 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a musical for her role of Celie in the Broadway Musical, The Color Purple. She performed, "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me" and it was excellent! Her voice was so full and dynamic and she really connected to the song. Also, after the service, LaChanze and her husband, Derek Fordjour, both complimented me on my performance of "Order My Steps". They were both really impressed at my delivery of the song. It was nice to get such a compliment from LaChanze.

Overall, the service was a real success. Pastor Cari got the recognition and celebration that she deserved. First Congregation Church is entering a new chaptor by installing Pastor Cari and are headed towards real change. In the history books of First Congregation Church, installing Pastor Cari was like the inauguration for President Obama. I am glad that I was able to witness such a great historic event.

Final Summer Concert Series Show at First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn

On August 20, I performed a mini concert at FPC to conclude their summer concert series for the year. The concert series included hymn sings, where the choir would sing songs from the hymn, an art show, guitar band, brass band, and a mini orchestra. All of these concerts took place outside on the steps of the church in Brooklyn Heights. Brooklyn Heights is a quiet and quaint area of Brooklyn, so our music series was very conspicuous. They were a lot of fun, however! The weather was really nice for most of the series. We also had wine served and sweets like brownies and ice cream. It was a nice way to fellowship outside and enjoy the summer nights.

My concert was particularly interesting. We had started about half an hour late because of technical difficulties. When I arrived to perform, I was surprised to see already a full house! All of the rest of the summer series started 10-15 minutes late because we were waiting for a crowd, but at my concert everyone was ready to see me! I was really excited to see all of the support. After we had the music ready for the show, I started rockin' and rollin'. I sang original songs, cover songs, and some gospel songs. I opened with "Keep Walkin' On" and everyone loved it. I also sang "You Gotta be" by Des' Re and "Shackles" by Mary Mary. I also sang "Sista Girl", a song that I wrote. People in the neighborhood who walked by the church stopped and listened to me. There was one group that stopped and listened to my entire concert! I was very happy to draw such an audience. A blogger for Brooklyn took a picture of me and mentioned me in their blog. You can check out the blog here: http://mcbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2009/08/final-music-concert-at-first...
Overall, it was a wonderful experience. People were still talking about the concert weeks later.

National Anthem at the USTA Eastern Family Day Grassroot's Challenge

I had such a great time singing for the USTA Eastern's Father's Day Family Grassroots Challenge!! I had to get up really early in the morning to prepare. I got up at 5:30am in order to get ready to sing later. I was planning to sing around 8am, but it ended up being around 9am. Everything was so hectic; the tech crew was still looking for the mic around 8:30am, the players were still gathering together to meet for the opening ceremony, and everything had to be in place to start the opening ceremony.

The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis center, where tennis greats such as Venus and Serena have played, is such a huge place that the coordinators had to have walkie-talkies just to get around. Even with these devices, it was still hard to communicate. I had been practicing the National Anthem for the past few weeks before the event. I practiced for so long because I forgot about how difficult the song is!! I had sang the National Anthem at other sporting events in the past felt very comfortable with the song, however, I needed to brush up on a few parts of the song. I decided to sing the song in the Key of G, which gets up to a high D. I'm a belter, so I had to belt out that high D multiple times and that takes practice!! However, on Saturday, it went well and there were no issues. Everyone loved my rendition of the song. I don't think people were expecting such a strong voice from someone like me that early in the morning - I blew them away!! The event coordinators recorded the whole ceremony! See the video here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE1BYdxcXPY&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]

I was a little nervous that the whole event was going to be cancelled because on Thursday night, the weather had forecast rain all weekend long and the event coordinators were starting to think about cancelling. However, on Friday they decided to go forward with the event and see what happens. It was clear that morning when I sang the National Anthem, but later that afternoon, it did start to rain. It's too bad it rained because it was an outdoor event where parents and children played against each other in tennis. I hope that they had enough time to enjoy the tournament before the rain started.

It was also really nice to see Michelle Paterson, the Governor David Paterson's wife, speak during the opening ceremony. She spoke about her platform on the importance of leading healthy lives through physical activity. She had her bodyguards there of course, but her demeaner was very approachable and sincere. It was nice being able to share the stage with someone like her!