Santa Cruz has no shortage of singer-songwriters—obsessed with their craft, they live for their evenings when they can trade the crushing ennui of Sisyphean day-jobs for the rush of stepping up to a live mic in front of open ears. Brave? Indeed. But every so often, you meet a musician who takes their art one step further, holding sacred a sophisticated, self-derived philosophy of music, forged over years of moments spent in isolation, meticulously distilling thoughts and melodies into songs, followed by moments of extreme public exposure, in which these private creations are courageously performed. Local singer-songwriter Jayme Kelly Curtis has such a philosophy; she speaks sagely and eloquently of her craft, and often quotes her primary inspiration Joni Mitchell as if she were invoking Nietzsche himself. To Curtis, songwriting is a surefire strategy to create community, but only when the lyricist takes care to “move from the ‘I’ to the ‘us.’” “You can say this happened to me and I felt this way about it,” she explains, “but when you move into the tools of metaphor and imagery, it becomes an invitation to the audience, ‘feel what I feel.’” Curtis entices her listeners to do just that; with lyrics profound, her originals take the form of several distinct genres (blues, jazz, folk, rock), and when the guitar proves limiting, she picks up the dulcimer for its meditative gravitas and the ukulele for its perkiness. But evolving past our narcissism aside, if we’re nursing a major flaw these days, Curtis says, it’s Schadenfreude or joy derived from the suffering of others. Outing reality TV shows as the master perpetrators of this trend, Curtis calls for the “democratization of music.” “We live in a society that is all about looking to the expert and defining who that next expert is going to be … Music is the birthright of every single human. Whether you have a natural, strong impulse to make music or not, most people have some music inside of them.” Curtis supports this theory acting as the M.C. of Britannia Arms’ Songwriters’ Competition, a gig she’ll uphold every Tuesday through May 13. Info: Tuesday, March 11, 9 p.m. Britannia Arms, Aptos. Free. 688-1233. |
