Jill Seifers

Vocalist Jill Seifers has come a long way from her moody and dark teen years. Today when she talks about her idols in the music industry, she's frequently animated and bubbly. When she talks about her own start in the jazz world and the jam sessions she attended, she laughs aloud at her own nervy attempts that got her booted from the stage. During her teen years in her hometown of Portland, OR, however, laughter was in short supply, and enthusiasm just wasn't there. Seifers was more serious than bubbly, and she had to deal with bouts of depression, a condition that other family members also suffered from. The offspring of an economist and a choral director, she became even more somber when her parents divorced. Rather than the uplifting sounds of someone like Ella Fitzgerald, she turned to the music of Joni Mitchell and the writings of Anaïs Nin and Karl Marx. Her taste in music changed thanks to a college course, where she heard the works of jazz artists that she'd never been exposed to before, such as Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker. She also discovered Sarah Vaughan, thanks to her purchase of a cassette in a grocery store. These new sounds hooked her and she became determined to sing in a way that was similar to the sounds of a bop instrumental. She became a student of jazz at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and continued her education at New York's Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of singer Anne Marie Moss. During this period, Seifers was more interested in the music itself and improvisation rather than lyrics, which held no appeal for her. Her outlook changed, though, following the death of her father from AIDS. She returned to Oregon for his final days, and his passing left her emotionally distraught and unable to sing. That was when she came...