Interview with the Italian singer Irene Jalenti.

WSI: When did your passion for music start?
IJ: I guess at birth because I cannot recall a specific moment when I realized my love for music. Growing up in a family of musicians surely gave me the right input to cultivate a passion that for me it’s more like a true faith.

WSI: Your father has a historic music store in Terni, your native city. Did you spend a lot of time there listening to music when you were little? Who were your idols?
IJ: My father Rino opened the store in 1964 so long before I was born. When I was little I used to spend hours there listening to unsold vinyls from the past. Sometimes I would grab a violin trying to have some sound coming out of it. It was a true full immersion into music. My idols already were the big names of black music: Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone together with Nat King Cole were my passion, while of the Italian culture I only loved to listen to Fabrizio De Andrè, Luigi Tenco and Sergio Endrigo.

WSI: Do you remember the first concert your saw and what emotions did you feel?
IJ. It was at the old Politeama Theater. The performers were the Chicago Gospel Mass Choir featuring Albertina Walker. Unforgettable! To see a gospel choir performing live for the first time was overwhelming. I never felt all that energy and emotion before. When you see a gospel performance it’s impossible not to feel the power of God.

WSI: When did you understand that you had a beautiful voice?
IJ. Well, more than realizing of having a beautiful voice, which is subjective and a matter of personal taste, I realized my instinctive and natural way of modulate my instrument at young age. At 13 I was already singing in public, even if in small shows. Before turning ten I was recording in multi track (which means one voice over the other, a cappella), which gave me an idea of my timbre, the concept of modulation and the relevance of harmony.

WSI: How did you decide to dedicate yourself to jazz and what type of studies did you take up?
IJ: Actually jazz has always been one of my strongest passions looking at the fact that at 14 I already knew largely the repertoire of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, but meeting Lorenzo Fontana surely was crucial. Lorenzo is one of the best tenor saxophonists of the central Italy, his musical taste indeed had a strong impact on me since my first jazz collaborations were with him. After having been part of the Clinics of Umbria Jazz in 2006 lead by teachers of the Berklee College of Music of Boston, I studied for one year at Siena Jazz with Fabrizia Barresi and Alice Reynolds. After that I decided to play more on the field and after few trips to Paris I booked a one-way flight to New York in 2008.

WSI: In 2010 your arrived to Baltimore, how did it feel to move to a city so far and different from Terni, and how have you been received?
IJ: After having been admitted to the Peabody Conservatory of Music of Baltimore I made the big step and moved there. The city is indeed different from Terni, but at the same time it still makes easy to establish human relationships. Italians, surely women even more, are seen very well here. Thus I’ve been received warmly. I would say that Baltimore now is my second home.

WSI: Your new project is called WiP (Work in Progress), how is it articulated? Is your private and professional life always changing?
IJ: This project is called “Work in Progress” and represents for me a constant walk to the research of my personal musical sound and identity. Having many different musical styles influencing me I decided to dedicate this project to the fusion of these styles for eventually create one that totally represents me. Music is continuously evolving, if you play what you already know how to play then you will never grow. Being a person who looks always at the future, I feel the need to learn and modify myself constantly, not only in music but also in my personal life.

WSI: What artists inspire you?
IJ: I get inspiration from all the artists that move me, from Billie Holiday to John Coltrane, passing through Radiohead and Zero 7. My father and my cousin, the great Francesco Jalenti, both had a strong musical and spiritual influence on my musical development.

WSI: Your best performance?
IJ: Usually is the most recent because of the concept of continuously growing. The concert of last October at An Die Musik in Baltimore is indeed my favorite performance right now, probably because I was presenting the WiP project with the best musicians of the Maryland and DC area.

WSI: Are you victim of the emotion before going on stage?
IJ: Always and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop it. Even if I have been performing for my entire life, there is no time that I don’t feel nervous. After the first two pieces, established a feeling with the audience, I totally relax.

WSI: Some name of musicians you’ve played with?
IJ: The most recent are Allyn Johnson, Mike Pope, Eric Kennedy, David Kikoski, Steve Wilson, Victor Dvoskin, Paul Pieper... and I can’t wait to extend this list!

WSI: Your one is a Mediterranean beauty that sticks into someone’s mind, do you take care of your body and look?
IJ: First of all thank you! Yes, I take good care of myself which I believe is a type of care that comes very natural for Italian women. I’m careful with what I eat because all the things we assimilate then reflect outside. Being a singer and my instrument part of my body, I have to be even more concerned about my health. Look too is important to me, even if it’s a type of care again natural that comes from our Italian culture of fashion.

WSI: Is it true that “music is the key to heaven”, phrase of Francesco Jalenti that you quote on your website?
IJ: Absolutely! Francesco was not only an amazing musician, but mostly a person with a strong spirituality. I am sure, as he was, that music is the key to heaven. There are moments when a musician, with a faith or not, feels an energy that it’s unnatural and almost impossible to explain while playing. There are emotions that music only can give and that to me have very little to do with the human nature.

WSI: Which of your Italian habits have you kept now that you live in Baltimore?
IJ: Cooking. The only habit that I kept is cooking every day as I was doing when I was in Italy. I cannot get into the mentality of fast food or eating out every day. Even when my life rhythms are fast, I still cook something and take it with me.

WSI: Do you often come back to Umbria to perform?
IJ: I try to come back every six months, but it really depends on the type and quantity of opportunities I receive throughout the year.

WSI: You also play guitar, what emotions does it give you?
IJ: Playing an instrument makes you independent and more aware of the importance of the harmony. When you are confident with an instrument you are free to change the structure of a piece, modify harmonic changes, groove, following your instinct. Anyway my main instrument is actually the piano that I have been studying since I was little and I am studying even more now.

WSI: What do you like to do beside singing?
IJ: My passions are all related to art and sport. I love to go and see expositions, or drawing and painting, I graduated at the high school of art. I love sport, so I try to always find time to work out, especially to go swimming which for some reason helps me to think.

WSI: What would you recommend to a young woman who would like to follow your same path?
IJ: Don’t let time discourage you, because it’s never too late to start everything from zero. Don’t take criticisms negatively, but at the same time don’t be too hard on you; learn that you have to filter who is criticizing you for your good from who is doing it to discourage you. Still be humble. I see many young musicians making a step and thinking that they have arrived when it’s not like that. It’s important to remember that when you learn something it doesn’t mean that you’ve learned everything, the more your study the more you learn that there are hundreds of things that you don’t know. My last advice for the girls is to be careful. Unfortunately in the music business you cannot trust too much men and their intentions, so it’s important to not let their compliments make you blind. Be smart.

WSI: How important is the love for singing in your life and love in general?
IJ: Love for singing is the most important thing. Without it, it would make no sense to sing. You have to love what you do totally, for this reason I have never compromised in music, I cannot sing things that I don’t love even if they’d make me earn more money. As I said before, music for me is faith and faith it pure and unconditional love. Love itself in general is very important, also because is the feeling that has always inspired the best musical compositions. How can you talk about love in a piece if you don’t know what means to love?

WSI: On your facebook page there is a quotations of John Coltrane about the relationship between music and nature, can you report and comment it?
IJ: It says “All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws”. To me this is a very deep phrase. I believe that music is one of the primitive instinctive ways to communicate that men has had. Many tribes used to communicate through rhythms, and to pass on stories through songs. When a musician can get in touch with the harmony of the nature to respect its laws, then he can discover a side of music that was unknown before and he can play notes completely new.