"Jill Tracy" Permission Magazine Issue #9


"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting." –e.e. cummings

Musicmaker Jill Tracy lives a life of delicate decadence. For the better part of the last decade, she’s let the chips fall where they may, danced with dares and dandies, filled her pockets full with life’s surprises. This lackadaisical approach to life combined with an enigmatic, creative vision motivated Tracy to shake the small-town quicksand from her ankles and step forth onto a road she’s paving for herself. In the search for knowledge, she challenged the conventional, refused to rely on anyone else’s map. As for urban roads along her path, in New York City, Tracy often found playing cards while traversing the streets.

"It was a fairly common occurrence that they turned up," she admits. As a result the medley of numbers and colored emblems on these cards provided a forum through which she could weave a story, read and interpret the symbols in an enactment of her own cosmic poker."

Jill Tracy discovered that she was drawn to one card in particular: the nine of hearts, which she associates with success or fulfilling a role similar to a wish card. Drawn to the nine of hearts- or was the nine of hearts drawn to her? Not only did the card seemingly deal itself onto her path at several significant junctures of her New York experience; it also resurfaced an additional time after she relocated to San Francisco.

"Shortly after I moved to the city, I came across the nine of hearts on the sidewalk outside my apartment. At that moment, I had a strong intuitive feeling that I’d made the right decision (to move from N.Y.)" she says, summing up the "cosmic poker" topic with an acute sense of economy. This sense of acuteness combined with creativity form her artistic style which is entirely unique.

As for the art she creates, attempting to describe her music within the confines of conventional genre is futile. Her CD Quintessentially Unreal resonates a classic ambiance with a cleverly contemporary twist. Tracy composes dense, dramatic pieces and performs them with all the dexterity of a concert pianist. Yet her "pop-noir" melodies and darkly playful lyrics give a macabre and somewhat maniacal feel to subjects like self-consuming desire and destructive obsession. Songs like "Make It Burn," sung in Tracy’s smoky, girlish voice make these unsettling subjects remarkably alluring.

Tracy describes her musical prowess as being born "out of (her) defiance": having mainly taught herself to play the piano simply goes to show that formal training is not a prerequisite to artistic ability. In her own words, she remarks that "The best thing I’ve ever done is to not listen to what other people have told me." Her "defiance" is not reckless or immature; Tracy states "I abide by the rule that all songs are already written in your head- you just have to find the place to tap into it." Perhaps this belief is what gives such individual personality to her music- Tracy does not seem to compose music. Rather, she is simply echoing through her voice and piano the music she hears in her head.

Jill Tracy’s future is promising, no doubt due to accomplished performing ability and a vast, active imagination. Her public need not discover a stray nine of hearts to recognize an unmistakable magical quality about Ms. Tracy that completely defies explanation. One question that lingers, though, is whether Tracy is the player, the dealer, ot both in this game of cosmic poker she plays. But let this question remain unanswered: the mystery of Tracy’s inspiration is her magic. Those who listen will be enchanted.

by Clint Catalyst