Tales that need to be told

(l-r:) Blair Mackay, Jennifer Moore, and Bill Parsons

Cabaret has always been a dissident art form.

While it may be better known for its showier trappings, the image that may immediately spring to mind for many is that of the Academy Award-winning 1972 movie, which itself is a deeply satirical film, the musical style has a rich history of political and social commentary that dates back to the late 1800s when it first emerged from Paris’ community of anarchists, artists and out of work carnival performers.

It told important stories that needed to be shared, often exposing the dark underbelly of the human experience. The music’s storytelling spirit is what drew Pirate Jenny’s Jennifer Moore to it. She became interested in cabaret while she was studying classical music.

“When I listen to songs I want to hear the words,” Moore explained. “It’s one of the big beefs I have with live music and with the way mixes are done in performances; I want to hear what they’re saying! I want to hear the stories so to me it’s very much about the kinds of stories that are being told.”

Moore had studied classical music extensively since she was a child and initially thought she was going to be an opera singer. However, she eventually came to the realization that perhaps a career with the opera was not one she wanted to pursue and formed Pirate Jenny Trio in 2000 with guitarist Bill Parsons and percussionist Blair Mackay. They recently dropped the “Trio” from their name. It was only added so they could avoid any confusion with a band in the US that shares their name.

There are still elements of her classical training in Moore’s rich voice. At a recent performance at the intimate Red Guitar Art House Café, her vocals soared to near operatic heights during several songs, particularly on the haunting ‘Asiye’. She seemed to channel the ordeal that the song’s inspiration, Turkish journalist Asiye Zeybek, endured at the hands of the Turkish police force.

Moore felt that ‘Asiye’ is the most important song on their excellent new CD, To the Moon. She was first introduced to Zeybek’s story after her former partner worked on a documentary for BookTelevision about the plight journalists in Turkey called Voices of Dissent: The Struggle for Freedom of Expression in Turkey.

Zeybek was arrested for editing a Socialist newspaper and imprisoned for two weeks. During that time she was repeatedly raped and tortured. She was then jailed for another five-and-a-half years without being brought to trial. She fled the country after she was briefly released and is now living in exile.

“I was so moved by her story,” Moore said. “By the fact that she had survived all of this and just how appalling and disgusting the whole thing was, that I felt compelled to write something about it.”

‘Asiye’ is not an easy song to listen to and it is not the only song on the album that was inspired by the story of someone who has endured a tumultuous existence. She wrote the song ‘Boy’ after she met a 17-year male prostitute at a party and spent the evening talking to him.

“I guess in all forms of art making some people are compelled to speak out, it’s not even a choice really, for me it’s not a choice, I just have to do it,” Moore explained. “I realize it doesn’t appeal to everybody. Some people don’t want to hear and they don’t want to know and they would far rather be entertained.”

The shift toward writing more original material partially contributed to the three-year wait between their 2002 debut Cabaret Blues and the recent release of To the Moon.

When Pirate Jenny first started out their set list consisted of a combination of cabaret standards and a few originals. With the new album they decided to start writing their own material. If you add a variety of side projects and freelancing jobs to the equation you can begin to see why there was a bit of a wait between albums.

The transition from performing covers to writing their own songs was not a difficult one to make according to Moore.

“It felt extremely natural to me and really important,” she said. “I’ve loved the content in terms of cabaret, I’m not interested in the more superficial kinds of songs, I mean like playfully ones but I generally like songs that have substance and so I was very inspired to be writing. I just felt sort of a sense of urgency to create my own songs and then to collaborate on these songs with my two extremely gifted instrumentalist partners.”

Courtesy photograph