The Record
(Bergen County, NJ)

January 5, 2001, FRIDAY

FOLK SINGER FOUND THE GIFT OF LIGHTNESS

By JIM McGUINNESS

JESS KLEIN: 8:30 tonight. $ 12. Outpost in the Burbs, First Congregational Church, 40 S. Fullerton Ave., Montclair. (973) 744-6560.

Many songwriters write from personal experience.

Not Jess Klein. The Boston-based performer seldom uses herself as the subject for a song, preferring to rely on her imagination.

"My favorite kind of songs to write are completely fictional from start to finish, where I create a character and see it all the way through,"Klein said in a phone interview. "It doesn't have to be, 'I'm famous and this is about me. I just need some emotion in there that I can sing convincingly."

Klein has done plenty of convincing since taking up songwriting six years ago. Her independently released 1998 debut album,"Wishes Well Disguised,"garnered three Boston Music Award nominations, helping her land a recording contract with Rykodisc subsidiary Slow River Records.

Her first album for the label,"Draw Them Near,"was released in August.

Produced by Rykodisc President George Howard, the 12-song collection shows Klein as an engaging vocalist with a knack for writing folk-pop ditties. The trick, she says, is 1 balancing the lyrics and the music.

"It's important to me that they don't get in the way of each other,"Klein says."You can say less with a lyric and still get it said with the music. And if you have a heavy lyric, it's important that the melody or the instrumentation lightens it up a little, because life isn't that dramatic."

In making"Draw Them Near,"Rykodisc teamed Klein with a group of Nashville musicians that includes guitarist Will Kimbrough, bassist Brad Jones, and Wilco drummer Ken Coomer. Klein rehearsed twice with the group, then recorded the album in a 12-day span at Jones Alex the Great Studio in Nashville.

"I wanted to have musicians that could be really versatile and could follow the songs in different directions and not be stuck in the same groove,"Klein said."At the same time, I wanted it not to be a really labored-over record. I just wanted to capture the energy and the vibe of the songs."

Raised in Rochester, N.Y., Klein made her first foray into music playing classical clarinet. A turning point came when she spent a year studying in Jamaica. In packing for the trip, she took along an old acoustic guitar her father had been keeping in the family's attic. In Jamaica, she found the easy-going lifestyle conducive to learning the instrument. She decided to relocate to Boston and pursue music professionally.

"I had touched on a bunch of creative outlets, but I hadn't found something that I felt I could depend on," Klein said."When I started to write songs and sing, I found that. It was really liberating for me."

Rykodisc has been promoting Klein through a string of high-profile gigs. Her 2000 schedule included appearances at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, the Sundance Film Festival, and the Newport Folk Festival. She also spent three weeks touring Europe with the Boston
favorites Willard Grant Conspiracy. But the highlight occurred at the end of July when she was sent to Japan to play before a crowd of 50,000 at the Fuji Rock Festival. Alone with her guitar, Klein took the main stage as the festival's first performer.

"It was baptism under fire,"she said. "There was no choice but to give my all. I don't know how much of the lyrics the people understood, but it really forced me to focus on 1 the music and the melodies. I really feel that people connected to that."

After winding up a tour of the Northeast this month, Klein hopes to head back to Japan in February and perhaps Europe in the spring. She also is assembling songs for another album.

"When I get home from being on tour, I'm so overloaded with ideas for songs,"she says. "You learn so much by traveling. I'm just starting to home in on what I'll be writing about next."