jar-e

Soul Food
How Jar-e is feeding the local music scene
by Alli Marshall in Vol. 14 / Iss. 15 on 11/07/2007
“There’s a little trickle of soul music being cool again,” notes Asheville-based recording artist Jar-e. And then a sentiment that would make Groucho Marx proud: “Everyone’s going to be doing it and I’ll have to do something else.”



Slim, with the tilted brim: Jar-e ponders the future of soul music ... and the meaning of his name.
The singer, songwriter and keyboardist proved with his first two albums (Heartache and War Songs and the Muse) that he can do something other than soul. An eclectic mix of samples, Latin influences and jazz nuances earn Jar-e both respect from his peers and label interest (he’s signed with Exotic Recordings).

But what the musician has in store for his next disc is a richly layered, retro-styled, Motown-flavored soul album. With rhythm, horn and a strings sections, the vision is a wall-of-sound album Jar-e describes as (ironically) stripped down.

Think Otis Redding and Carla Thomas singing a duet in the decades before stereo sound. Think back-up singers and orchestrated compositions recorded in a single live take. That’s the kind of sample-free, low-tech effect Jar-e is dreaming up.

“I can’t wait to record it,” he enthuses, joking, “once I convince Echo Mountain to let me do it for free.”

Anyone who’s caught one of Jar-e’s recent shows—lush with keys, horns and lyrically emotive vocals—can vouch for the performers’ uncanny skill at distilling the best of vintage Motown and finishing it with tasteful, modern touches.

While waiting for the right time to go into the studio, the musician keeps busy collaborating with other local artists. “I’ve been trying to play with all the people I really like,” he says. “I try to play with people who really get my goose.”

Yes, Jar-e possess the sort of unapologetic cool that means he can wear both trucker caps and dangerously angled fedoras while spouting lines like “get my goose.”

“As far as improv with Stephanie [Morgan, at a recent Stella Blue show],” he continues, “she blew me away. I love improv.”

Jar-e came to Asheville from Norfolk, Va. to go to Warren Wilson College. Born Jon Reid, he took on his hyphenated moniker for poetic reasons illustrated in his rap: “They call me e/ that’s empty/ that’s every/ that’s eager/ that’s easy/ that’s effort/ that’s eat me ... endless ever-change/ every style/ every name ... i am him/ slim with the tilted brim/ you know you know him.”

Got it?

His quartet was known, briefly, as North of Cuba, but the musician prefers being a solo performer with regular contributors, like Iron & Wine (the brainchild of singer-songwriter Sam Beam) or Sparklehorse (led by multi-instrumentalist Mark Linkous). “But it’s not just about me, Jon Reid,” the musician insists. “It’s about the creative life I’ve experienced. It’s easy for me to be really generous with my creative vision when I have the buffer of knowing it’s my own thing.”

The creative life of Jar-e seems the stuff of a sunlight-drenched indie movie. As early as age 10, his grades suffered as he turned his attention to song-writing. On a canoe trip with his older brother, Jar-e discovered Irish soul troubadour Van Morrison. He while in Europe, he cancelled other travel plans to remain in Granada and catch Morrison in concert. He speaks multiple languages and has journeyed through Mexico, Greece and Britain. Days before talking to Xpress, he took a spur-of-the-moment cross-country road trip to L.A.—just because.

Though Jar-e likes to be at the helm, band-wise, as his free-spirited wanderings indicate, he’s hardly a dictator. “I’ve played as a backup musician to other performers who have everything arranged ‘to a T,’’” he points out. He’s no stickler for arrangements; he simply asks that his cohorts are “listening and have their own heart they bring to it.”

Which harkens back to improv. It’s how his quartet got their start, and something he still likes to break out on stage. “But I use the word grooving instead of jamming,” the musician says. “I’m trying to never fall into the jam band category.”

With the horns, the self-exploratory rap, the retro Motown sound and the distinctly nonjam band following, that’s probably one concern Jar-e won’t need to lose any sleep over. - Mountain Xpress

Show review: Jar-e at Stella Blue
by Alli Marshall on 10/09/2007

This is my assessment of local vocalist and keyboard player Jar-e: He takes the best of what ‘60s-era soul gave to music as we know it (emotion, groove, horns) and adds all these modern touches (hip-hop, Latin, world beat). But listening to his recent Stella Blues show (Friday, Oct. 5) wasn’t like witnessing yet another experiment in genre-fusing. Instead, there’s a sense that this thing has come full circle; that Jar-e’s sound is the culmination of the musical melting pot.

Honestly, I was having a hard time being objective. Some bands evoke the critic in all of us. Jar-e just doesn’t do that for me. “Like his influences that stretch from Manu Chao and Joao Gilberto to Motown greats like Stevie Wonder, Jar-e finds places where lines blur and music is born fresh beyond cliche,” says the artist’s Sonic Bids Electronic Press Kit. I’m good with that. But really, I don’t even care if Jar-e has done his homework (as a press quote from Xpress in the same EPK claims he has). I don’t care whether not he’s plumbed the depths of Motown or vintage Bossa Nova, carving from each ancestral genre a perfect seed from which to cultivate his well rounded sound garden. What I really want in any show — more than the opportunity to wax philosophical about the archaic roots of modern music — is to be entertained and transported to some place at least incrementally more fun than my daily life.

The Stella Blue show was that, absolutely. Jar-e’s stage show is captivating. He wields his voice like a weapon, starting in slow and rather unassuming but quickly escalating into a barely controlled wail, flirting emotively with pitch and not bothering with suave containment or other niceties. That’s a good thing. There are plenty of technically good voices out there, but the memorable vocalists are the Rod Stewarts, Van Morrisons and Willie Mae Thorntons who let it all hang out.

A nice bonus to the evening was that Stephanie Morgan hopped on stage to sing back up on a few songs and lend her own powerful vocals to a jammed-out version of Sade‘s “By Your Side.” - Mountain Xpress

by Jake Frankel, Entertainment Editor


Jon Reid, aka Jar-e, released his debut album, Heartache, last month on independent New York label Exotic Recordings.

We caught up with Jar-e recently to talk about his new album, his current work with the Jar-e Quartet, and his plans for the future.

AD: What inspired you to make Heartache?

Jar-e: I was playing with a group, North of Cuba, and things were going relatively well. But I felt like there was this part of myself and this part of my life that needed to be addressed and I kind of went on this self-imposed hiatus. I left everyone I knew and my feeling at the time was I didn't know if I was ever going to come back. So I went to the beach in the winter and it was a pretty desolate time. And basically, I looked into the mirror for as long as I needed to figure out where I was going to go next. That process of looking in the mirror, the process of being on that self-imposed hiatus, was what I was dealing with in Heartache. The idea I was working with was that to be in this world, with all the sadness, the loss of love, the tragedy, the sickness in this world, to not have some kind of heartache inside of you means that you're not alive. So the album was me diving into my heartache and clearly giving myself to it, going into all those emotions and seeing what would come of it, what would come out on the other side.

AD: Are you happy with how it turned out? Do you think the music ended up being a good reflection of what you were going through and what you were trying to express?

Jar-e: Very much so. I've been recording on shitty 4-tracks since I was in 6th grade, but having a nicer home studio situation, I felt like I could put all of myself into one project and really complete it. And while I don't think it's perfect, I think it is a perfect reflection of where I was at.

AD: What was it like being the only musician and singer on the album? What were the goods and bads of doing it that way compared to working with a group?

Jar-e: Playing all the instruments on the album was a reflection of me dealing with my solitude. The fun thing about playing all the instruments was that I got to be the fucking guitar player. I'd come home in the wee hours of the night and just be like "I want to be a fucking guitar player tonight," and I'd rock out guitar. Some nights I was feeling funky and I'd play some bass. Some nights I'd just want to make a beat, and some nights I'd want to sing layers and layers of shit.

So it was fun to do it. But it was also kind of scary and kind of insane because it was all me and I didn't understand the technology or the reality of me being able to play with me a thousand times over.

AD: What are some of the influences that have shaped you the most?

Jar-e: Stevie Wonder, John Coltrane, Radiohead, Bjork, Erikah Badu, D'Angello, and Keith Jarret.

AD: How would describe the music on Heartache to someone who hasn't heard it?

Jar-e: It's definitely melancholy, and melancholy could be found in Gillian Welch, it could be found in some Miles Davis, it could be found in sitting in your room by yourself. That's the feeling behind a lot of the music I'm into Ð melancholy. And there's definitely some funk. All the influences shine through on the album. I'd say it's the feeling that you have after you've cried your eyes out and balled and everything feels a bit better and you still have the sadness but at least you've gotten some shit out.

AD: What's the significance of the name "Jar-e"?

Jar-e: It came to me when I was dealing with the fact that I didn't really want to be in a rock n roll band anymore. I'm much more comfortable with hip hop and with jazz Ð the whole philosophy behind the musicians playing with each other, the fact that different DJs and MCs come together but there's still an acknowledgment of what they individually bring to the project. I have a vision and I want the people playing with me to be part of that vision. But the Jar-e part of it is that the vision doesn't really come from me. I truly, at the bottom of my heart, feel that the vision and the whole energy behind my music shines the best when I am empty, when my ego is not getting in the way. And that's what Jar-e is: jar-empty, jar-everything, a jar as an empty vessel. And it also sounds like my name, Jon Reid.

AD: Tell me about your current group.

Jar-e: I'm playing with a few really great friends and a few really great musicians. It's been my dream for a long time to play in a jazz-improv-instrumental hip hop funk group where we could not get bogged down with song writing and covers. Where we just get together and play and develop our ability to play off of each other and play completely improvised music. And that's what we're doing. We've all played together before. It helps us improvise a lot and it helps us with our relationship. It's a real integration of previous musical experiences I've had.

AD: What kind of direction are you going to go in with your next album?

Jar-e: The next album is called War Songs in the Muse. It's definitely influenced by the emotional-political climate of being back in the U.S. I went and traveled in Europe for a while and didn't think I was going to come back but I ended up coming back for my friends and the people I love. So that's the ÔWar Songs' thing, being here. And the ÔMuse' is the inspiration, the women, the beautiful things I love, that make life worth living. I think it's going to be... I don't know. It'll be interesting.

-Jake Frankel - Asheville Disclaimer