Jane O'Brien

Pop meets Sophisticated Jazz and Irish Folk. What does that mean? When Jane O'Brien sings her songs about love and life then this contrast makes sense. The Irish singer / songwriter presents her own mix of cool trip jazz, ethereal Fender Rhodes sounds coupled with her clear intense jazz folk voice. She lives from contrasts. In ?Strawberry Souffl??, a jazzy and steamy elegy to daytime sex, she plays the Irish traditional bodhr?n. Sometimes she uses jazz, folk or pop elements or even drum & bass, as in ?Blooming? a very danceable, sing along song about cancer.

With Martin Stieber on drums, Carsten K?rtling on bass and Andreas G?nther on Keyboard nothing is sacred.

PRESS REVIEWS

Jane O' Brien and her Band
Moving Irish Jazz-pop with a lot of emotion
CHRISTOPH FORSTHOFF Hamburger Morning Post 26.06.07
Sometimes it is simply good to experience a concert where someone stands on the stage purely for the love of music. Not, because they are attracted by a quick buck, or some girlie thinks that three chords and a seductive smile is enough for a music career. No, simply an evening where the music comes from the soul and touches the audience deeply and gets right under the skin, just like tonight with Jane O'Brien in the Stage Club.
A singer/songwriter from Ireland who has lived in Hamburg for nearly two decades, O'Brien has gone through a variety of singing and band formations and has now obviously found her own music in a line-up with piano, bass and drums. Certainly thanks to the really good and sensitive musicians, Andreas Guenther, Karsten Koertling and Doerte Schueler, especially Guenther, the man on the grand piano, who time and again surprises with original licks and runs which he nonchalantly throws in.
Jane O'Brien describes her music as "cool Irish pop-jazz with a lot of emotion". And certainly the songs offer a lot more than a couple of pretty melodies decorated with jazz elements. For one thing her little stories take unexpected turns musically and stylistically again and again, ballads with folk, rock sounds with trip hop leanings. And then there's O'Brien's clear intense voice, which takes the listener along with it from the very first note. Sometimes even in a small setting love produces really big music.

Picturesque undertones - Enchanting: Jane O'Brien and Band in Lutterbeker Kieler Nachrichten (Kiel news)
It is the contradictions which make life what it is. Many of us would like to block out the fact that tragedy and humour, beauty and pain, joy and fear lie side by side but Jane O'Brien is fascinated by exactly these contrasts. On stage the singer and songwriter from Dublin does not present kitsch folk, instead, in the company of her band, she spins a magical web of plaintive pop and lyrical jazz combined with free improvisation. With a key change here and a shift in rhythm there, Jane, with her crystal clear voice, creates a taut atmosphere in which to tell her stories. The small woman with the cute side curls can certainly hammer out a note. She brings melancholy, dreamy romanticism to life with her strong voice and pulsating rhythms. When she is not playing the guitar she plays a circus snare or the Irish bodhr?n with its characteristic deep soft tone ...
... Jane O'Brien ?twists and turns? in bed wracked with worries about love as the ?full moon's rising? and stares at the ceiling ?...maybe I should paint this room Magnolia?. The audience in the packed Lutterbeker is enchanted. She can be as sharp as Anne Clarke when she sings of fear on the streets at night to a march rhythm and follows it with a hymn to the Dublin mountains.

Hamburger Morgenpost (Hamburg Morning Post)... She remains unmistakable; this unusual mixture of hints of Sinead O'Connor and Bj?rk, often containing fast drum rhythms coupled with emotionally charged yet relaxed melodies

Kiel News....She characterises her style of song writing with her strong and at the same time velvety voice and with her humorous, yet critical slant on life...