[JPL] Boulder jazz singer Meryl Romer celebrates the release of her debut CD at the Rock N' Soul

[Jazz Promo Services]

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2009/mar/05/meryl-romer-boulder-jazz-singer-
music/

Boulder jazz singer Meryl Romer celebrates the release of her debut CD at
the Rock N' Soul

By Vince Darcangelo
Thursday, March 5, 2009

Jazz singer Meryl Romer has taken a unique route to Thursday's release party
for her debut CD, So Sure, at the Rock N' Soul Café.

For starters, she didn't take up singing until after reaching the
half-century mark. Now 57, Romer is experiencing the fruition of the work
she started in 2002, when she took a chance on music.

"I just realized, hey, I'm 51. 'What you waiting for, girl?'" she says. "You
get to that place in your life where you have to start asking yourself the
questions: Am I doing what I really want to do?"

What Romer wanted to do was sing.

"I've been involved in dance most of my life. I'm a dance therapist," she
says. "I've wanted to sing jazz since I was 11 years old. I've been singing
these songs, making the sounds under my breath my whole life, but never
opened my mouth. I was too shy. I hid behind dance."

This is chronicled in the original composition "I've Waited Long Enough,"
which appears on So Sure.

"It's like a juke-joint swing kind of sound," Romer says of the tune.

The album includes two other originals and covers such as "Lady is a Tramp"
and "You're a Big Boy Now," a reworking of Bob Dylan's "You're a Big Girl
Now."

"It's a song that just tells another piece of my story. A lot of people hear
this song and just think tragic love, love lost," Romer says. "This is my
interpretation: There is this slight hope that maybe you can pull it
through, maybe we can do this, and I'm asking you to try."

Though So Sure is Romer's first release, it's not the first rodeo for her
all-star backup band, which includes guitarist Bill Kopper, producer and
Romer's vocal coach Casey Collins and pianist Erik Deutsch, who plays
keyboards in the Charlie Hunter Trio and served as Romer's music coach.

"I embarked on studying with Casey and Erik from January of 2003 on, pretty
intensively for a good three and a half years," Romer says. "Really
intensively. I worked with them weekly -- separately, together."

Deutsch and Kopper handled the arrangements on So Sure, some of which were
born in those early study sessions.

"There were a couple that I had really worked on over the years with Erik,"
Romer says. "He's an amazing jazz pianist. He's incredible."

Deutsch and Kopper will be part of Romer's backup band at Thursday's CD
release. It will be the first time that many of the songs have been played
live, the culmination of a seven-year journey -- a dream no longer deferred.

"All of a sudden it was more important to do this than to be afraid," Romer
says. "When you start a new hobby or career later in life, there isn't time
to lollygag. There's an urgency. This is it. This is the time. I really went
after it pretty intensively.

"It's a pretty amazing thing," she adds. "Maybe more than amazing. I'm
really trying to follow my dream and enjoy my life. This felt very important
to me."

Contact Camera Music Writer Vince Darcangelo at vdarcangelo at yahoo.com.

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