Distinctly Montana Magazine

WWW.AUDREYHALL.COM Montana Made DEPARTMENT We applaud our Montana-made musicians for keeping our spirits up and running. Here we throw the spotlight on a variety of musicians and genres found around the state. JENI FLEMING, BOZEMAN Jeni Fleming blends the JAZZ/ POP “rhythms of pop with the harmonic so- phistication of jazz.” The daughter of a Lutheran pastor and English teacher, Jeni first sang in the church choir. Piano lessons began by age six. She made her classi- cal piano debut with the Billing Symphony, the first of a string of successes in the competitive classical piano world. “Having studied classical piano for most of my life, it is the thing I know something about, but singing is the thing I feel something about.” In 1997, Jeni and (then soon to be) husband, Jake, recorded their first album together, It Is Well, and were featured on national TV. With the success of their first recordings, the Jeni Fleming Trio, including Jake Fleming on acoustic guitar and saxophone and Chad Langford on bass, was featured as the pilot episode of 11th and Grant with Eric Funk, which aired on Montana PBS in 2005. Five albums and three additional band members later, Jeni has refocused her touring efforts toward numerous jazz festivals and clubs across the continental U.S. and into Canada. Nowa- days she’ll begin and end a tour in Bozeman, where most of her musicians live. Here “the energy is so different, the audience so responsive,” she says. The new band, a sextet, was formed around 2007 and includes Jake Fleming who not only plays but also writes many pieces, Chris Cundy on piano & hammond B3, Sean Lehmann on bass, Adam Green- berg on drums, and Craig Hall on electric guitars. (They all have impressive bios.) album, Come to Life (2010), is a collection of original songs, jazz standards, and re-arranged pop/rock tunes. Their first collaboration and Jeni’s most recent Jeni says, “With the larger band the parts I used to imagine I was hearing are there.” Jeni and her band members practically “live in” an excellent music studio, which she, Jake, and Chris Cundy designed for rehearsals, teaching, and recording. Roll- ing Stone magazine covers animate the walls. Jeni and Jake also co-founded Hand Me Down Some Silver, Inc., a 501(c)3, offering need-based scholarships for young musi- cians in southwest Montana. Since creating the studio Jake has produced and engineered a handful of projects in the studio including Hand Me Down Some Silver’s Footnotes Volumes III and IV, Jeni Fleming’s Come To Life, Kelly Roberti’s Slumber, new albums by Lang Termes, Jake Koelzer, www.Twang, and others. For a schedule of events and other “If music be the food of love, play on.” Shakespeare BY VALERIE HARMS juicy tidbits, visit www.jenifleming.com. www.distinctlymontana.com 51 M o M n t a n a u - M aa n s d e s i c i M

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