The Record Music Magazine

American vocalist/percussionist/lyricist and composer Paula Jeanine has recently been exploring her love for music by bringing two diverse cultures together ~ the soothing sounds of ghazal with melodies from the west. On her first Indian tour, she talks to The Record about all things music.

On Her Tour Across India…
One of the thrilling things about the tour was that I had to work with different musicians in every place and every moment was breaking new ground for me creatively. I felt like I was at the top of my work ~ it didn’t just engage me as a musician, it engaged me as a leader and as a woman and as an American. It was amazing to see so many young people be so enthusiastic about the music. The American Center also arranged for there to be some service elements in the tour. So I did these really high profile gigs and then they said, ‘Okay Paula you’re going to go and address the AIDS and addiction challenged people in rehab places’, in the middle of nowhere in Raipur. Then we also went to the Happy Home For The Blind and performed for the children there. These things were in the blend, and that is, I think, in the best form of Americanism: to have a balance in what we do and also in the best form of the Indian experience as well. That was great!

On Her Journey In Music…
What I’m always going for in my music is, ‘Who am I? I’m not even a human at the moment. I’m blending with something bigger than me, bigger than my speck of sand on the shore by the ocean. I am going into something that is there before me and will be there after me.’ But in that moment we are really making something. You’re trying to touch the divine and you can’t force it. The musicians here have allowed me to have that experience. They’ve spoiled me! [Smiles] I have to come back!

On The Reactions To Her Musical Creation ~ American Ghazal…
People are astonished! First it’s like… ‘Masala pizza?’ [Laughs] because they are not certain what it is. But they get their mind around it pretty quickly, once they see how I’m singing it and that I’m giving myself to it… I’ve being doing this for a couple of years now so I’m comfortable in it. It doesn’t feel that I’ve just learned it, I’ve been living and breathing it for a while. It seems to be moving the audience, and they are giving it back! People were crying at the last show [in India], they were engaged by it. And in New York, the people that don’t know a ghazal from Google, you know, [laughs] they just like the way the song sounds, the way I’m moving my voice.

On The Challenges Of Being An Artist…
First of all there is always the financial challenge. You have to love it otherwise it’s too hard. There are times of plenty and there are times when there is a paucity of work and even emotionally, there will be times you’ll be at your best and times when it’s the aftermath…so you have to be ready for the peaks and valleys. Psychologically you have to have the capacity to take it. Most importantly it’s about how I have to be true to my art. You just have to keep renewing yourself, you have to stay interested in your work and that’s hard. There isn’t that good an infrastructure for artists in India or the US actually. In Europe you get a stipend for your work, my friends in France get a rehearsal space, a government stipend. If they perform and teach music, they get support. In Canada a pretty high amount of radio time has to be devoted to the Canadian artists. We don’t have that in the US. In India, I don’t think there are enough pages in the paper talking about classical music. You have to foster an appetite in people for it. It’s like you foster an appetite for jeans, you know, because it’s in the ads in the papers, and you have to foster an appetite for this as well. You have to make people pay attention.

You can read the rest of our SPeak Easy feature on Paula Jeanine in the November-December 2006 issue of The Record Music Magazine available at your local newsagent.

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