Jenie Thai

Jenie Thai’s debut album “Only the Moon” spends most of its journey dancing merrily between summer-fun-piano-pop and incredible basement-blues. The former, of course, I was expecting, based on the few times I’ve seen Jenie around town in the last couple years. Though, to be fair, once you listen to the lyrics, the “summer-fun” isn’t always about summer fun, if you know what I mean. “The half-eaten moon is mocking me”, for example, from “Lonely Tonight” – not exactly what I’d call “fun” – so maybe I need to tweak that description at some point in the future. But you get the idea.

As for the blues tracks, of which “So Lovely” might be the best example. She is so good at these, you can almost picture her in a smoky basement club in North Chicago, the smoke so thick you can barely make her out on stage. Jenie’s tickling the ivories, crooning into the biggest damned silver microphone you’ve ever seen, and there’s two beefy, grizzled African-American men in scruffy white beards playing bass and drums behind her, the bassist looking somewhat disinterested, the drummer with a couple of bottles of hard liquor on the floor next to his stool (her actual backing musicians are anything but, by the way).

And just when you have her pegged, well hang on to that for a second and let me tell you a tale. Not a fateful trip, fortunately, but I was driving around when first listening to the CD, the first piano-pop song requiring a bit of humming along, then the second song (the “So Lovely” noted above) dropping you into a basement blues club. And I’m thinking to myself, “man, she’s got some incredible range, but you know what would be cool is if she turned up the funk”, and then *BAM*, just like that, she drops the funk on the third track “Cold Throne”. Like, jaw-dropping out-the-other-side funk. And just for kicks, to prove her incredible range, she’s also included the epic-cinematic-pop masterpiece “Throw Down Your Love”, requiring you to hold your breath in its weighty anticipation.

And you know, I don’t like to throw the word phenom around, it’s a curse in the baseball and hockey worlds. But Jenie has such amazing talent and skill for someone of her age, that it honestly just makes you shake your head at the possibilities. Obviously she loves the type of music she makes, you can tell by the emotion coursing through her at live shows and you can feel it in the recorded music just as easily. But you also start to let your mind wander, what would it be like to see her front a shoegaze band? Or an alt-rock act? Or an alt-country-jam band akin to Wilco? I mean, I’m sure she could do anything she set her mind to. It would be an interesting one-off, that’s for sure.

The final thing that stands out are the photos in the CD packet. Bri Vos of Detour Photography did such an extraordinary job. Like, open-your-mouth-and-let-flies-fly-in good. I mean, so good that whenever a local act asks for a photographer recommendation I’m just going to say Bri Vos and be done with it. The lighting. The poses. The composition. The setting. Like, stand back and take a bow, Bri.

Back to Jenie, though. The best summary of this album, of her as an artist, would probably be what I just told my co-worker as I lent her the CD for the weekend because I think her daughter will absolutely fall in love with it – “one of the best pianists in the city, splitting time between smoky blues and elegant piano-pop”. And yes, I guess I do talk like that in real life too. - New Music Michael

Edmonton-based Jenie Thai has fast made a name for herself playing living rooms, clubs and festival stages in western Canada and now the 20-something year-old classically trained pianist with a love of jazz and blues is ready to fly far with Only the Moon, a beautifully crafted nine-song album of original songs showcasing a voice that has the warmth and beauty of a young Maria Muldaur. The indie album was recorded mostly live off the floor at Edmonton’s top rated Sound Extractor Studio and Stew Kirkwood nails every song with his sympathetic and under-stated production. Labels will be clamouring to get the jump on this one. She’s an original and the album is first-rate. - New Canadian Music - David Farrell

EDMONTON — Jenie Thai brings a cheerful approach to career challenges.

“I like to do things that terrify me,” the pianist-singer admitted recently, recalling the moment she sang a ’tweener set at the Canmore Folk Festival for about 5,000 people.

“Every time I force myself to do something I don’t want to, I’m always happy I did.”

She will have a fresh opportunity to satisfy that urge when she heads for Memphis, Tenn. next month as the Edmonton Blues Society’s solo representative to the 30th annual International Blues Challenge. Thai hopes to do a bit of musical research along the way.

“I’m really excited that I’ll be immersed with blues musicians from all over the world, to be able to hear blues music all day and all night, and to be in the heart of where the blues came from. I want to rent a car and go down to the Mississippi Delta because there’s so much history there. I want to get closer to the roots.”

Thai has a fondness for the whole spectrum of blues and soul sounds that began from listening to her dad’s record collection as she was growing up. “It’s the feeling, the energy, and as a player, it’s the most fun of anything I play on the piano because I get to tell a story through the keys. It’s exhilarating.”

The songs she performed to win the EBS Memphis Blues Challenge in October naturally hung on blues grooves too (including covers of Sippie Wallace and John D. Loudermilk). But there’s more than that to Thai’s music, as you can hear on Only The Moon, the full-length debut disc of original tunes she released last spring.

The first thing you might notice is that the album has a varied and splashy sound for a trio featuring her piano, Paul Bergeron’s bass, and Adam Dearden’s drums, recorded live-off-the-floor with only a few overdubs. She credits producer Stew Kirkwood for helping her get the right sounds in sessions, captured over Thanksgiving weekend 2012.

At 24, Thai’s beguiling voice already has a hint of something older and gutsier to it, and touches of jazz, folk, classical and blues surface in her songs. She finds it hard to focus on one particular style because “I like too many different kinds of music,” though she recognizes career considerations could steer her in one direction or another. “I’m still working on finding my sound or my voice, but I do love playing blues piano.”

Local fans might recall seeing Thai on the U-22 stage at the 2011 Edmonton Folk Music Festival. Apart from appearances at regular music venues, she has also put a lot of time into setting up her Couch Concert Series, private house bookings as far away as British Columbia’s Okanagan region and Vancouver. Despite the logistics, she loves the intimacy of house shows and she has played for audiences of up to 60 in a mansion at Whistler.

Thai had a thing for Tom Waits’s music even before she could understand what he was singing about and she’s also a fan of Bonnie Raitt, Ryan Adams and Ella Fitzgerald. The great classical composers and blues piano greats like Dr. John, Memphis Slim and Professor Longhair got her attention too.

Born Jenie Thai Nolan, she uses her first and middle names on sage (her Canadian parents were travelling in Thailand when she was born, hence the middle name). Her musical family also includes another recording artist, brother Joe Nolan, and her sister Nataya Nolan sang backing vocals for several tracks on Only The Moon.

Growing up around Edmonton, she took 15 years of classical piano, with frequent detours into music books for jazz and blues standards and she’s been working on her own songs since high school. Two years of classical studies at Augustana University and two more in jazz and pop at Grant MacEwan University found her rocking out in various projects with friends before she settled on a solo career. Her first paid gigs brought serious encouragement.

“I was so elated and I couldn’t believe I was making money doing something I loved.”

After graduating from MacEwan in 2010, Thai was accepted to attend Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts but when the time came, she set that option aside. “It would have been amazing but I didn’t want the huge debt and I felt it was time to be out in the real world as a musician. I’ve been really happy with how things are going since.”

She recorded a demo EP in 2011. She teaches a few piano students on the side, and has been making her living from music for a couple of years. More recently, she’s been balancing out her schedule with midday sets for travellers at the Edmonton International Airport and in-house concerts.

After she competes with dozens of other blues performers in Memphis in January, she plans to hit the International Folk Alliance Conference in Kansas City in mid-February. - Edmonton Journal - Roger Levesque

Only The Moon offers insight and effort as well as a breathy talent that flows from song to song.
- Fort Saskatchewan Record, Trent Wilkie

Only The Moon produced a nine-track collection that complex and layered, yet incredibly easy to engage with.
- Leicester Bangs, UK Blog

We welcome local blues and folk musician Jenie Thai with her unique bar room deliver combined with smoky, sultry vocals." Nominated for an Edmonton Music Award, Jenie Thai performs live on Breakfast Television. Watch video with the URL link. - Breakfast Television

"...Jenie Thai played to an intimate and enraptured audience… She beamed ear-to-ear and danced in place behind her keyboard, playing boogie woogie and jazz tinged blues on her keyboard… delivered soulful vocals... scatted a little in between lines… I enjoyed her quirky lyrics and sense of humour, not to mention watching her dance, I was impressed with her vocal range, but more-so by her keyboard playing skill…"

View Article... - Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor

"...Jenie Thai played to an intimate and enraptured audience… She beamed ear-to-ear and danced in place behind her keyboard, playing boogie woogie and jazz tinged blues on her keyboard… delivered soulful vocals... scatted a little in between lines… I enjoyed her quirky lyrics and sense of humour, not to mention watching her dance, I was impressed with her vocal range, but more-so by her keyboard playing skill…"

View Article... - Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor

With the advent of the Internet and reality television there have been numerous music star wannabe’s lately finding fame by simply posting videos or songs online or lining up with other hopefuls in their bid to find the big time. While Canadian Idol, The Voice, Canada’s Got Talent, YouTube and Facebook have all worked for some aspiring musicians, that’s a road Jenie Thai won’t soon be travelling.
Thai’s a 23 year old Blues/Jazz singer/songwriter/pianist from Edmonton who’s doing things “her way.” A pianist since the age of five, Thai graduated from Grant MacEwan University in 2010 after studying jazz and contemporary music and is finding her “big time” in a unique way. Thai’s goal this summer is to travel coast to coast giving live performances in people’s living rooms, or as she calls them, “couch concerts.”
After applying to Home Routes (www.homeroutes.ca), a house concert non-profit organization, and being told they were full until 2014, Jenie embarked on a journey of her own. Inspired by a few friends who’ve travelled the world using the hugely successful travel website www.couchsurfing.org, she logged on to get some contacts and the rest, as they say, is history.
“I was actually accepted to the Paul McCartney International School of Music in Liverpool but turned it down,” said Thai with a giggle. “I felt that it was time for me to get out there and perform and if I needed I could always re-auditon. The thought of being $90,000 in debt with student loans didn’t help either. I love to perform and love sharing my music and this is a great way to do it.”
One of Thai’s first forays into the “couch concert” scene was actually in the Heffley Lake area near Sun Peaks at the home of Anne and George Terwiel. Thai contacted the Terwiel’s son Justin through a friend on couchsurfing.org and the show was on. Not knowing what to expect from Thai as a musician, you could sense the anticipation of the friends and family on hand while the wine flowed and dinner was served prior to the show.
Once Thai began singing her heartfelt songs about life, love and laughter the Terwiels’ living room erupted with applause.
“It was amazing and something totally unique,” said Justin. “I think the intimate setting really set the stage for both the crowd and Jenie, and you really feel connected to the people and of course the music was absolutely unreal. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
Thai sells her debut EP Lady Flower at her couch concert shows (it’s also available on iTunes) and accepts donations from her enthusiastic audiences as a form of payment. While obviously the food, wine and a place to crash are great additional perks of the job, it’s the new fans she connects with that truly make her unique journey rewarding.
“The people have been amazingly generous and warm,” said Thai. “The home settings have been really concert-like with people really appreciating the music. The hosts of the seven home shows I’ve done so far have really done a great job in getting people out to watch and hopefully now that I’ve pushed the snowball down the hill this thing can grow. The goal is to take this nationally, so we’ll see where it goes.”
To say Thai is a groundbreaker in the troubled waters of the music world would be an understatement and once you hear her play and sing you soon realize even at the young age of 23 this girl is truly an old bluesy soul with a style all her own and a drive to succeed that will undoubtedly lead to a life of music, fame and fortune.
For more information visit www.jeniethai.ca - SPIN NewsMagazine, Adam Earle

f adventure can flow through the veins like music through the fingers on a keyboard, Jenie Thai, born in Chiang Mai, was birthed with the call of the wild.

The young Edmontonian hasn't even released a full-length album yet, but her song, Lady Flower, off her 2011 EP of the same name, won an honourable mention in The International Songwriter's Competition, plucked from a field of 16,000.

Considered by the New York Times critics to be the top songwriting competition in the world, it's judged by celebrities like Tegan and Sara, bluesman James Cotton (who played with Muddy Waters), Spanish sing-songwriter and Latin Grammy Award winner Alejandro Sanz and gravel-voiced Tom Waits.

"I'm a huge, huge, huge Tom Waits fan. So I just entered to see if I could get him to hear my music," she sad. "I even called to see if he would be the one judging it, but they said they couldn't release that information."

Spunky, but not one bit punky, this classically trained pianist took her Royal Conservatory training, for which she received the highest marks in the country the year she completed, and went straight into Grant MacEwan University to study jazz and contemporary music. She landed a spot in The Paul McCartney School of Music after graduation, but the blues beast growing within just couldn't be tamed.

"I wanted to play music as a full-time musician, not study music," she explained; she never made it to The Beatles academy.

Instead, she managed a "lickety splickly," Tom Waits-style adventure out onto the open road with the release of that first EP at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival.

After hearing about the organization Home Routes, which organizes "house" concerts in people's homes across North America for musicians, she set up her own couch tour —Home Routes was booked through 2014—using the aptly named CouchSurfing, a website for general travellers.

As such, Jenie Thai played a gig in a Kelowna living room last year, but her trip to the Minstrel Café on Monday, July 9 will be the first time she showcases her bluesy, jazzy, funk music in an actual Central Okanagan venue.

And she couldn't be happier about it.

Speaking to the Capital News via cell en route from Banff, one could hear the off-beat staccato excitement that peppers her lyrics ringing through the phone line.

Asked to describe her show, she answered with the frank delivery of someone who, frankly, knows how to deliver.

"High energy," she said. And one listen to her songs proves the point.

Three months into her mother's pregnancy with her—her first pregnancy—Jenie's father decided the couple should travel through India. Her mother became so sick she weighed less at six months pregnant than when Jenie was conceived. This is how Jenie, who does not disclose her real name, came into the world in Thailand, an area her parents figured safe enough for her to be born.

It doesn't sound like there was any random Italian detours along the way, but one can hear the "allegro, allegro, allegro" pounding in this young woman's soul as she kicks her way through the long piano runs of her first songs: Monkey, Sedusa, It's Only You (That I Want) and Stop.

Who knows where the wild things go when unleashed to the power of creativity, but for now Jenie Thai comes to Kelowna's front door.

- Kelowna Capital News, Jennifer Smith

Established in 2002, and called “the songwriting competition to take note of” by the New York Times, the International Songwriting Competition (ISC) is the world's foremost global songwriting event. This year it was the most competitive of any year in terms of quantity and quality of entries, and winners were selected from over 16,000 songs submitted from 112 countries worldwide. Judges included iconic artists Tom Waits, Jeff Beck, McCoy Tyner, Kelly Clarkson, Janelle Monae, Ozzy Osbourne, Lucinda Williams, Tori Amos,Wynonna, Keane, and many more. In addition to the high-profile artists, the roster of judges also included five record label presidents as well as other industry leaders, offering songwriters the unprecedented opportunity to have their music heard by influential decision-makers. Jenie Thai was recognized for her song "Lady Flower" and received an "honourable mention" as a young artist under the performance category. - International Songwriting Competition

"After hearing Jenie sing for only :30 seconds, I knew she was a star in the making .. easy to work with, very nice personality .. and a beautiful soul."
- Sienna Collins, Morning Host, Global Television

"After hearing Jenie sing for only :30 seconds, I knew she was a star in the making .. easy to work with, very nice personality .. and a beautiful soul."
- Sienna Collins, Morning Host, Global Television

“Pianist/vocalist Jenie Thai has an incredible voice – possibly the best voice of anyone the entire weekend.” (Pertaining to performance at Edmonton Folk Music Festival)

View Article...

- New Music Michael (check out www.newmusicmichael.com !)

“Pianist/vocalist Jenie Thai has an incredible voice – possibly the best voice of anyone the entire weekend.” (Pertaining to performance at Edmonton Folk Music Festival)

View Article...

- New Music Michael (check out www.newmusicmichael.com !)

"Energetic, vibrant, talented, dynamic and diverse... Jenie Thai is all the regular words you might use to describe an amazing young musician only more so... [she] dances and jumps and sways while she sings and plays her piano... Jazz, pop, folk, blues, ballads and screamers, Jenie is well worth it no matter what you want or need in a show... look to her recordings to savour the range and depth she brings to her song writing skills. Acoustic, electric, solo, full band, coffee shop, festival stage, Jenie Thai does it all in style."
- Chris Martin - CBC Producer

"Energetic, vibrant, talented, dynamic and diverse... Jenie Thai is all the regular words you might use to describe an amazing young musician only more so... [she] dances and jumps and sways while she sings and plays her piano... Jazz, pop, folk, blues, ballads and screamers, Jenie is well worth it no matter what you want or need in a show... look to her recordings to savour the range and depth she brings to her song writing skills. Acoustic, electric, solo, full band, coffee shop, festival stage, Jenie Thai does it all in style."
- Chris Martin - CBC Producer