Once I took a job in a small jazz club. While the half price food was great, I really took the job for the music, for the endless stream of obscure bands flowing through on their way from Seattle to San Francisco. I quickly found out that three quarters of those shows should be worked with earplugs-and this was not because the volume was up too high.
But what kept me at the club year after year was that one out of four bands that pulled up and set up, also blew me away. Amelia was one such band. Over the years, while the ensemble that brought belly dancers was hard to beat for sheer entertainment, Amelia became the show that I never missed.
Amelia hails from Portland, Oregon where they have been concocting their extraordinary music for about 6 years. The versatile talents of the three members, Teisha, Scott, and Jesse, produce music that incorporates so many styles — jazz, folk, swing, Flamenco, French and southern — that I don’t quite know how to peg it.
You’ll hear strings, tambourine, piano, slide guitar and Teisha’s incredible voice, one moment softly reminiscing about the nickels that slip through the cracks of a childhood couch, and the next belting out “Misery loves gin…to wash down all the vodka.” The deeply moving music is perfectly suited to a small, dimly lit club. One should always sit as close to Teisha as possible. She perfectly accentuates each melodic nuance with a pout of the lips or a dip of the shoulder. Though the rest of the band provides the skilled and eclectic backdrop, it is Teisha who steals the show.
I grew spoiled on Amelia’s incredible live performances. Switching to the album when I switched jobs was initially disappointing. I did enjoy my first buy, After All, because I could picture the songs live. But it always remained just an echo, albeit a good one, of the concert. I was anxious to give some new Amelia a fresh chance and see if my initial enthusiasm could be rekindled without the live associations.
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