Poetry to Sing
Poetry to Sing
Denise Amon
June 28, 2024
“I first contacted Jessie Jazz to invite her to participate in my ongoing project Music and Hope, in 2023. I was acquainted with her work, but had not met her in person before. When she arrived for the photographic session, I saw something in her eyes and felt immediately connected. I took pictures while we exchanged words. After that, we hung out in the patio; she smoked a cigarette and I interviewed her. She was then 20 years old.
Jessie Jazz is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist. Her music is influenced by jazz, soul, blues, and the aesthetics of the 70’s and the 60’s, with which she identifies, due to more enigmatic compositions, deeper lyrics and interpretations, more organic timbres, and live recordings. That is where she finds a core. She told me she enjoys observing human behaviour and writing a summary of it in the form of poetry, so people can sing. Jessie is a person of colour who came from the outskirts, representative of the LGBTQ+ community, living in a very conservative state in southern Brazil; a composer performing on stages, who seeks to captivate, to awaken, to break people’s bubbles, and to give new perspectives to other marginalized persons, through her compositions, with a message to be passed on, an energy and a happy vibe. It's about occupying a space that they have been trying to win for so long. Music constitutes her. I see strength, female empowerment, self-knowledge, expression, and social insertion in her story, all in harmony with a lightness and hope for a better life.“
Jessie Jazz is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist. Her music is influenced by jazz, soul, blues, and the aesthetics of the 70’s and the 60’s, with which she identifies, due to more enigmatic compositions, deeper lyrics and interpretations, more organic timbres, and live recordings. That is where she finds a core. She told me she enjoys observing human behaviour and writing a summary of it in the form of poetry, so people can sing. Jessie is a person of colour who came from the outskirts, representative of the LGBTQ+ community, living in a very conservative state in southern Brazil; a composer performing on stages, who seeks to captivate, to awaken, to break people’s bubbles, and to give new perspectives to other marginalized persons, through her compositions, with a message to be passed on, an energy and a happy vibe. It's about occupying a space that they have been trying to win for so long. Music constitutes her. I see strength, female empowerment, self-knowledge, expression, and social insertion in her story, all in harmony with a lightness and hope for a better life.“
Text and Image: © Denise Amon
EQUIPMENT: Leica M11, Summilux-M 75 f/1.4 Asph
Denise Amon+-
Denise Amon has a PhD in Psychology. She is a researcher, consultant, and independent scholar working on projects on the following topics: the human condition, society, social representations, social memory, communication, ideology and ethics. Her work in progress, titled Music and Hope, consists of building visual narratives approaching how musicians experience their own stories, and
analysing the connections with family, community, society and hope. Art has always been part of her life, either in the form of music or photography. She lives in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil. More