Jennifer Terran is a recording artist local to the Santa Barbara area. Last night, I attended an intimate concert and recording session in her home and had a wonderful time. I rarely write concert reviews, but this experience was the intersection of meeting someone new, attending a recording session, and seeing a live performance.GETTING THERE"This is like Mexico," exclaimed my wife as we bumped over the twisting, eroded road to Jennifer Terran's home concert location. We cut short our pre-concert warm-up – a tradition characterized by reviewing whatever scraps of the artist's material we have – to devote our entire concentration to the dusk and fog, which was already thick enough to keep every sense occupied."Now you know why I wanted to take the cushy Jeep," I answered. My previous trip in my sports car had taught me that this was not the kind of road you wanted to feel.Jennifer's home is nestled in the hills overlooking Santa Barbara. It's a beautiful and special place, but you need to have been there to navigate the back roads and mountainous terrain. I had been on the same road before, so we found her home without much trouble.

We entered Jennifer's home and I immediately noticed the care she had taken to set the mood for the performance. The concert room was filled with the ambient sounds of mallet rolls on cymbals and gongs from around the world, and was dimly lit with the soft glow of burning candles. Comfortable seating lined the perimeter of the room, and the walls were decorated with human form artwork - some of which might have been Jennifer, and I imagined that I was perhaps looking at surplus album cover artwork.Several special guests in attendance, and although I can not confirm absolutely, it appeared that Jennifer's mother and at least two travelers coming from as far as Las Vegas (6 hours) and Los Angeles (2 hours) were present, as well as one other entertainer destined for New York to record with someone who reportedly worked with Aretha Franklin and Mariah Carey.

THE SETUP

The baby grand piano was the supporting instrument for the night. I counted no fewer than six microphones positioned around the piano, and a mesh of wires leading away into the recording console room. A Mackey speaker stood high on its pedestal at the end of the piano, and a seventh microphone was placed in front of it. I settled into my comfortable corner with a glass of wine and an open mind.Before the concert started, Jennifer explained the reason for such copious microphone placement: she wanted to capture the sound experience from many perspectives, which actually included the use of an eighth microphone connected to a small portable recorder which sat atop the piano.The recording environment was delicate, at least by my standards. First, this was taking place in an open, untreated room. Second, the floor was wooden, causing even the smallest structural vibrations to resonate into the microphones. Third, the home had a normal amount of ambient noise such as small motors, like refrigerators and fans (we turned them off), and crickets chirping outside (we closed the windows). Perhaps the biggest danger was also the biggest asset of the night: an untrained audience, some armed with drums. I cringed at the thought of all these elements combined, but I'll tell you now that the night turned out fine.My wife and I sat next to a woman, known to me only as Hailey, who was so moved throughout Jennifer's music that she had trouble keeping her red wine in the glass; once due to her participation in the audience drum beat for "Sticky Sweet" (the wine was balancing on her thigh as she beat away on them), and once due to primal reflex when she reacted to a moment of extreme speaker feedback - that may have put even the neighbors on alert - by reaching to cover her hears, wine glass still in hand. We can't blame her for the second one, and the first one didn't pose any danger to us. Real sweet girl, with or without wine.We sat down and waited for the evening to begin.

MEETING JENNIFER

I had never met Jennifer before, nor seen her, nor really heard her music. I just knew that she was a local musician who had an impressive following, and I had talked to her one the phone about a year ago. In fact, I was so uninformed that I did not even recognize her until she introduced herself.She met us with hugs and seemed genuinely glad that we came. I had been meaning to meet her for over a year, so I was pleased to have such a reception. Aside from her beautiful figure and elegant black evening dress, her height impressed me. It is not often that I tower above anyone, but this was the case with Jennifer.

THE PERFORMANCE

Jennifer's songs are personal. Some people do not necessarily require a personal connection to a song. But with Jennifer, I got the impression that she puts a lot of thought and effort into her choices. She did some cover songs too, although I could not easily identify covers and originals because she adapted the covers to her own style.I can't say for sure since I know so little about her or her music, but it seemed to me that many songs in her selection told stories of her own life. For example, she sang one song that recounted a memory from her youth of "staring at the sidewalk cracks" when her mother was continually late picking her up. I assume this is an original song with some truth to it, although Jennifer's mother, who was in the audience, did not seem to be bothered by the song. Her "Trader Joe's" song was a hit with the small crowd. In Santa Barbara, most people are aware of the Trader Joe's shopping experience. Some treat it more as a religious experience, and that was the case with this crowd. (One commented that it was his Utopia). I find the behavior humorous and a little puzzling since Trader Joe's is treated with cult-like reverence by environmentalists and the educated elite while being owned by the ALDI Group of Germany, a company run by the billionaire grocer brothers who also own 11% of Albertsons, which nobody worships. It seems duplicitous to celebrate a business as an icon of health and holistic living when it feeds a parent company that undoubtedly has diversified investments that are not aligned with the perceived values of the subsidiary. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the Trader Joe's movement, and customers just like the store a lot and they don't derive any deeper experience from it.

TRADEMARKS

Now we get to the part of Jennifer that left an exceptional impression upon me: her style. I like to try to learn from other artists, and so I spent the evening studying her performance style, spotting elements that might have led to her appeal. The first stylistic element I noticed was Jennifer's process for getting focused on her performance. She sighs, but with an audible hum, or moan. It's a little sensual, a little feminine, and very personal. She lets you hear the sound of her voice, and it sends a subtle message that spectacular emotion and courage are about to unfold. I would say this observation holds true for over 90% of her performance segments. In a way, it's a very sneaky and effective way of guiding the audience's expectations without words. Over time, you unconsciously learn the meaning of these sighs and it really helps to frame what will happen next.The second stylistic element is her use of a cliffhanger musical style whereby most songs are ended with a diminished or minor chord. In my opinion, this technique adds to her style, leaving the listener with a sense that the message has not yet been absorbed, or even fully described. The third stylistic element is Jennifer's vocal style and diction. She uses a breathy timbre with a wide dynamic range, and likes to trade long notes in favor of vocal trills or short melodic walks. The vocal trill is my second most favorite characteristic of her vocal style. The vocal technique that absolutely fascinated me for the evening is something I have come to call the Jenni-purr. It's a type of purr, so clever and unique, that it needed its own name. The Jennipurr can be heard about half the time on words that end in a long "N" sound. She lets her voice drift off into a quiet purr that, in my opinion, differentiates her style more than any other style element.The Jennipurr, and the wonderful hum described earlier, are incidental vocal sounds functionally similar to breath noise. Jennifer makes no attempt to conceal these sounds, but on the contrary, she uses them as part of the music. These types of incidental noises help to give Jennifer's style a raw, unfettered characteristic. Therefore, I would suggest that Jennifer's most valuable trademark is her use of incidental vocal sounds.

CONCLUSIONS

I will visit Jennifer again, but determining that wasn't the point of going in the first place. I wanted to meet a local artist, and, I admit, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about too.By watching Jennifer, I have learned more about what is important to me. I really enjoyed the personal touch and vocal style, and I intend to do some serious thinking about how I might apply it to my own pursuits.