Jenni Alpert Says Listen To Your Heart

Jenni Alpert was in concert on Saturday October 13^th and she put on a good show and it is too bad that Studio City Sound Live does not have at least a small audience so the artist can have the benefit of that instant feedback, but then this is the new age of concerts that seems to be dawning virtually. Ms. Alpert demonstrated ease in front of a camera, good vocals and a solid knack for songwriting. Accompanying herself for the most part, while seated at a grand piano and for a few songs on acoustic guitar she served up a low key performance, but one that should easily have held her virtual audience’s attention. The fact that she was talking to a camera in between her songs, also seemed to come naturally to Jenni Alpert, as she did so just as if she were talking to the person in the front row a few feet from a stage.

Dressed in a sleeveless black top and blue jeans, while seated at the piano, Jenni Alpert opened with the up-tempo “Listen To Your Heart,” from her brand new album Take It All, which sends up reminders of Sara Bareilles. The song possesses a staccato beat, and is about everyone telling you how to live your life, from your boss, to your wife and your brother and friends, but nobody wants to listen to what you want for your life. The theme of the song is summed up by the lyrics, “Your friends tell you what to think / Your mind wants to be free / All you can do is scream / because no one is listening / They think they all know / How your story goes…” (We guessed at the line breaks)

Ms. Alpert then segued into a slower relationship tune “Sweet Talk,” from her new album a song that plays to her strength, showcasing her good vocals. It speaks to finding strength in your significant other. These words caught our ear about one-third of the way through the song, “So now I’m giving you my permission / To bring fire to my ice and make it melt,” a poignant way to describe the walls we sometimes erect and how it takes someone special to help us take down those walls or in this case melt that ice, so we can truly love again.  

Jenni Alpert introduced her next song “Heaven,” by saying, “It is about running from something that is so great that you are afraid it will leave you first.” The song is very much like the scene from a film unfolding before our eyes, she is sitting in her car trying to remember a conversation that took place with him sitting beside her. It is about how sometimes our relationships are impacted by the ones we had with our parents or that they had with each other. It is about the fear of giving into what we really want in our lives or to whom we want in our lives. Jenni Alpert is so in the moment with this song that she draws the listener in and you are enveloped in the emotion and the angst of the person in the song.

Ms. Alpert performed “Real Thing,” and followed that up with a song she wrote with another terrific Los Angeles singer – songwriter Sarah Hethcoat “Nobody Knows,” before she covered Kings Of Leon’s song “Use Somebody,” and she did a really good job of interpreting the song and owning it, using with very emotive phrasing.

Jenni Alpert switched to acoustic guitar for “Simple Mood,” a song in which the changing of the seasons becomes a metaphor for the changing seasons of life, or a life in transition if you will.

Staying with the acoustic guitar for a couple of more tunes, she performed “Underneath,” from her 2010 release Underneath The Surface, a study in introspection and discovering the real you. Her vocals were pretty, her guitar work solid, as she finger picked and used the palm of her hand against the body of her guitar for percussion.

As the evening wound down, Jenni Alpert sang “Untied,” a song about being enthralled with someone. The song recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, again highlighted Ms. Alpert’s vocals as her vocalese teases you with the notion that she can probably scat pretty well. She sang the love confessional “I Will Love You,” and the upbeat Pop “All We Need Is Love,” a song that invites you to sing along. This is not a relationship song, but a song about spreading love and living in love with one another. Jenni Alpert also performed “Who We Are,” from the album Take It All.  

As for Studio City Sound Live, which filmed and recorded the concert, there were pluses and minuses and the positive elements were really good and the bad elements were really bad. The crew gets high marks for the audio and the high definition video was excellent. There were the annoying commercials that popped up several times before a song had concluded and although before that happened the first time there was a tab that said if you became a premium member you could avoid the commercials, we never saw that tab again. We were looking for it and when we tried to click on it the first time nothing happened. Our suggestion would be that they make it more obvious before the concert begins, because they may generate more revenue and it at least gives the viewer the opportunity for a more enjoyable concert experience. We do understand they have to pay for this one way or the other, just give us an earlier and more obvious opportunity to choose. Now for the bad, the host that came on at the end of the concert, her name being Katie or Katey should be replaced, unless she happens to be an owner in this enterprise and if she is, she should replace herself. She embarrassed herself not once, but twice and she was only on camera for about three minutes. The first time she apologized for not being there earlier, because she had to do laundry. Really??? The second time, she completely forgot Jenni Alpert’s name and had to ask her who she was. For an experience that delivered so well on audio and visual quality, Studio City Sound Live became unraveled at the end.

On the other hand, we became big fans of Jenni Alpert and Riveting Riffs Magazine will be interviewing her soon. For now please visit the Jenni Alpert website

Reviewed by Joe Montague

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