Photo courtesy Jack Grassel and Jill Jensen
Jack Grassel and Jill Jensen
Jack Grassel and Jill Jensen
Not so long ago, guitarist Jack Grassel and his wife and musical partner, singer Jill Jensen, were heard weekly—sometimes nightly—in Southeast Wisconsin. They’ve been playing less lately but will resurface for several performances this fall.
First up, Grassel will play electric guitar with the Choral Arts Society of Southeastern Wisconsin and a small orchestra in a concert featuring a remarkable work of contemporary classical music. Grassel compares Adrian Snell’s The Cry: A Requiem for the Lost Child to Mahler and played guitar on a CD of the work. “It’s challenging to play,” he says. “At one point, I’m playing in unison with the harpist—a real fast line.” The Choral Arts Society, 60 male and female voices strong, will sing the text to the British composer’s requiem, which addresses the child victims of war and ethnic cleansing. The Cry will be performed 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21at First Presbyterian Church, 716 College Ave., Racine.
For many years Grassel as a soloist and Grassel and Jensen as a duo—often billed as Jack and Jill—entertained regularly in local restaurants. However, even ostensibly high-end places have installed big TV screens with the volume turned up, making a meaningful musical performance, even as background music, impossible.
However, they continue to seek new opportunities to play. The duo will perform their eclectic, entertaining repertoire 7 p.m. Nov. 3 at Con Amici Wine Bar in Baraboo (no cover) and 10 a.m. Nov. 16 following breakfast at the Jewish Community Center, 6255 N. Santa Monica Blvd. ($10, 414-967-8258 for reservations)
“Occasionally we run into a venue where everything is done just right,” says Grassel of Con Amici. “They have a stage with a curtain behind us, couches and padded chairs, no television with sports on and audiences that listen and applaud.” Jensen adds, “Because of the intimate listening environment, we can talk about the songs—who wrote them and when. It’s almost like a cabaret.”
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Although Grassel earned his reputation as a masterful jazz guitarist, he has become increasingly multi-instrumental in recent years—playing a keyboard atop his drum set and adding harmonica to the triple-necked guitar-bass-mandolin he invented. He considers himself an entertainer. Jack and Jill’s repertoire is open ended, roaming from Mose Allison to Jimi Hendrix, swinging from Fats Waller to Sting with stops along the way for Tony Bennett. “Audiences are not into instrumental music anymore,” Grassel says. He recalls a jazz gig several years ago when an audience member complained that he played the same song all night. Some people cannot conceive of music without words!
Finally, Jack and Jill will perform holiday home concerts at their Racine home, Dec. 1-3. Grassel promises something other than standard Christmas tunes. “We will add some non-denominational seasonal music to our standard repertoire,” he says. Jensen describes the concerts (their eighth season this year) as “entertainment in a quiet comfortable environment with perfect acoustics plus snacks and drinks.” She adds that the concerts will give audiences a chance to hear her husband on another instrument of his own device, one too bulky to carry outside the house, his “junk drums.” He explains: “Instead of a bass drum, I have a cool gas can I got at a rummage sale. I have a 1948 Studebaker hubcap for a cymbal, an aluminum potlid, an array of bicycle horns. It took me a couple years to find all the stuff and get it to sound just right.”
For more information on the Choral Arts concert,visit firstpresracine.org/our-history/underground-railroad.
For more on Con Amici, visit conamiciwine.com.
For the Jewish Community Center event (open to the public), visit jccmilwaukee.org .
To reserve seats at Jack and Jill’s holiday home concerts (advance tickets only, $25 each), call 262-552-4012
