Finding her VOICE
IN THE SOIL: Niagara's Homegrown Arts Festival kicks off tonight
By LORI LITTLETON , STANDARD STAFF

St. Catharines Standard
Friday April 17 2009

After spending years singing pop tunes, Joanne Allen received an unexpected gift when her husband wrote a jazz song 10 years ago.

"(It) seemed to fit my voice perfectly and I thought, 'Oh, let's explore this,'" the St. Catharines resident said.

Steve Allen's smoky jazz number, entitled Where to Start, certainly became a beginning for his wife.

"I'll never leave jazz because it just feels right," she said. "I was looking for a place where my voice fit in, but this is it for me."

Allen is one of more than 70 artists who will perform during the In the Soil: Niagara's Homegrown Arts Festival, which begins tonight and concludes Thursday, with a showcase at Brock University's Sean O'Sullivan Theatre.

Allen will perform at Leafy Lovers: A Jazz, Pop and Sunshine Matinee, on Sunday, beginning at 12:30 p. m. at Stella's. She'll share the bill with the Juliet Dunn Quintet and Peter Shea Trio, Wainwright, Lily Nazar, Green Dynamo and the Niagara Dance Company.

It's also a fitting day for her to perform. Growing up in Welland, Sunday was music day for her family, which included her late parents Aurora, a singer, and Leonard Levesque, a guitarist, as well as her brothers Ken and Gil, who also play guitar.

After graduating from Welland High, Allen, who works for the City of St. Catharines, studied psychology at Brock, all the while "avoiding the music in me."

It wasn't until meeting her husband about 20 years ago that Allen began entertaining the idea of performing.

"He was a singer/songwriter, and we quickly developed a home studio. I would sing backing vocals on his projects and every time I did that, I wanted more," she said.

In the late 1990s, Allen began singing in clubs and coffee houses, doing 30-to 45minute opening sets.

"It was fun, but I was still wanting more," she said.

A few years ago, she went looking for someone to help her develop a jazz repertoire -- in the 1990s, she released two EPs of pop tunes written by Steve -- and found local musician Randy Stirtzinger, who will perform with her Sunday.

With Stirtzinger's help, Allen has built a catalogue of 70 songs, most of which are jazz standards. She mostly performs at corporate and private events, though she sometimes appears at Saturday afternoon jazz sessions at Cat's Caboose.

"( Jazz) is very creative. I think that's why I love jazz the most. I like the improv nature of it," she said.

Last year, Allen wanted to record a five-song EP she could hand out as a calling card. However, things progressed so well, she decided to complete a full-length disc and released An April Breeze, which includes many of her favourites, such as My Foolish Heart, My One and Only Love and East of the Sun.

"These are songs that I had liked when I first started my jazz journey," she explained. "I chose 12 (songs) but it was hard to do just 12."

Steve Allen, who works as a graphic designer, created the cover art featuring a five-year-old Allen, about the time she first discovered her voice.

Allen, who hopes to record another CD this year, said she's thrilled about performing at In the Soil, which she said will give more exposure to local artists.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to participate and get myself a little more known," she said. "With it being wide open and (having a) varied scope, (organizers) might get people to come who normally wouldn't listen to jazz. We hope to wow and excite them."

The idea for In the Soil was hatched in December 2007, when Sara Palmieri, sales and marketing manager at Brock University's Centre for the Arts, was chatting with Annie Wilson of Suitcase in Point, Jordy Yack of Pulse Niagara and Joe Lapinski of Yummy Recordings, about providing an opportunity for Niagara artists to showcase their talents.

Based on the former Niagara Weave series, the founding committee members created a juried format this time around.

"Our intent was to have one showcase night and we found we were overwhelmed with applications and there was a need for something bigger," Palmieri said.

After receiving more than 130 applications from artists, organizers lined up downtown venues to create a six-day festival. Other partners, including the City of St. Catharines, also jumped on board.

"Our intent is for it to become an annual festival and the amount of support from the arts community and the broader community shows this is something people are excited about," Palmieri said.

St. Catharines' Marinko Jareb wholeheartedly supports the In the Soil initiative. It's events such as this that factored into his decision to remain in Niagara, rather than relocate to Toronto.

"Toronto has more opportunities for artists, but you have the ability to get lost in the crowd and it's not as supportive of individual efforts," he said.

"Unless you have a big name attached to what you're doing, you get lost in the shuffle. People here are genuinely excited about what's going on in their community."

Jareb will perform at the Niagara Artists' Centre on Saturday, for Fertile Pasture Party: A Night of Film, Music and Multi- media Visual Arts. The event kicks off at 6:30 p. m., and will also feature Audacity, as well as short film screenings.

Jareb, 36, was born in Germany and lived in Croatia until he was three, when his family moved to Montreal. At six, the family relocated to St. Catharines and he graduated from Holy Cross high school.

In his late teens, Jareb was introduced to Toronto's early rave scene, a time when such events were more artistic-based and topped out at about 200 attendees.

"I was meeting people at the forefront of this culture, at the beginning of the digital age when computers were becoming ubiquitous," he said. "People were coming together to make a special event, not to make money or an impression."

Though Jareb began studying biology at Brock, he became fascinated by digital multimedia and, instead, took training courses in multimedia in Toronto.

These days, Jareb, who lives with his girlfriend Daya Lye, can be found doing video and audio mixing at arts events from St. Catharines to Niagara Falls. On Tuesdays, he's at Mikado's on St. Paul Street. Tonight, he's doing Pixel Rock, a video dance party to mark the end of university exams at Rockford's Niteclub on St. Paul Street.

For In the Soil, Jareb will present an original VJ performance -- a "video mashup," as he calls it. Some of the footage exposes urban development and human intervention on natural surroundings.

"This place has such rich agricultural soil. As soon as we scrape it away to build a parking lot, it's gone," he said. "We're shooting ourselves in the foot. We live in a spot where we can grow beautiful stuff and we're pulling up peach trees because we can't make a buck."

Many VJs don't weave messages into their work, presenting mostly abstract images instead.

"I come back to if there's no story or soul people can connect with, it's just some random crap," Jareb said. "There has to be more. (My work) develops into an implied narrative, which makes it stand out a bit."

Aside from working locally, Jareb also VJs at spots like Peaches, the Drake Hotel and Harbourfront Centre in Toronto.

"They ask me to come back because it's more than just ... iTunes blobs of colour," he said. "But that's also why I don't get invited to big clubs. They just want trippy visuals."

Jareb, who has also been involved with the Queen Street rejuvenation in Niagara Falls, having run the Smoke Gallery for two years, said he has received a lot of support from the Niagara Artists' Centre, Rodman Hall and artist Tobey C. Anderson.

"If we were in Toronto and I approached the person running the University of Toronto Art Gallery, it would be a joke," he said. "I find people lend an ear here and they're open to listening and being nurturing about what's going one. Without that support and attitude, In the Soil would never happen."