A young woman steps out of her apartment onto the street. Maybe she's got her guitar, maybe just a notebook. She moves purposefully but not too quick, as if she knows where she's going but wants to take in the sights along the way. Maybe she'll go to the bar and read a book in the corner. Maybe she gets up on stage and sings a song.

JAYMAY is a storyteller. The narrative runs through each one of her songs, a melodic thread of self-reflection and eloquent articulation, threading through music that is both graceful and bold. The songs are chapters, tales of the young woman who stepped out onto the street one night to find and lose love and move forward, open to the dangers and wonders offered by the world. On Over My Head, above the slow picking of a music-box guitar line, she intones, Tell me truly how to sing this song, but in the same breath it is obvious she already knows how. By the top of the next verse she admits as much: Listen to me as I sing this song. And you do.

JAYMAY was born, the third of six children, to an English teaching dad and stay-at-home mom. She grew up in a small town on the eastern reaches of Long Island's south shore. In a lively, crowded house, a baby grand, surrounded by overflowing bookshelves and family photographs, occupied valuable space in the living room. As a child, JAYMAY's musical gifts, in her singing and on violin, were apparent and she possessed a precocious appreciation for music, ranging from Barbara Streisand to Vivaldi. Her passion though lay in books; she poured through her parent's library: Salinger, Melville, Carver, Twain, plus histories, biographies, poetry, art books; all the time filling notebooks with her own writing. Books held the answers, she believed, and in writing she could tell her own story.

But something strange happened to pull her from the books and point her towards the songs: her CD player broke. Instead of a myriad collection of CDs floating around her house and in and out of her stereo, songs that had already become background music, she could only play tapes. And she only had three tapes: a wonderful, eclectic collection of Bob Dylan rarities called Biograph. JAYMAY listened intently and heard what she was looking for: the undeniable voice of a storyteller set to music that could be soft or loud, heartbreakingly lovely, raunchy and dangerous or anywhere in between. From there, JAYMAY picked up her brother's guitarand wrote her own song.

After graduating college in 2003, JAYMAY landed in Manhattan and began playin open mics all around the city and has since played over 300 shows at venues like the Living Room, Pianos, Bitter End, World Cafe Live, etc. Watching JAYMAY play is a unique, intense experience. For the uninformed, expectations often play their part. An audience sees a pretty, young woman get on stage with just a guitar and they think of high school poetry and half-hearted confession, trite folk chords, perhaps a passable singing voice. JAYMAY dispels these prejudices with the first words she sings. It is the sound of her voice that first serves to make people look up from their drinks and listen anew; strong and supple, rich in texture, forceful in tone, capable of conveying sweetness, sexiness, humor and heartache. Then people start to key into the songs themselves, the vividly poetic lyrics brimming with intelligence and emotional honesty, and the finely wrought, affecting melodies, more Everly Brothers than Indigo Girls. The words come steadily, bounding from note to note, but then she holds a phrase, stretching it out until the words lose meaning and again, there is just JAYMAY's voice. The audience is listening now. They hear JAYMAY, but they see themselves, their own tribulations, lost loves, lonely times when they were brave, because JAYMAY has told them of hers.

It is the true purpose of the artist, the singer, the storyteller; to articulate truths through a mix of craft, talent and inspiration in such way that they become real for the audience. JAYMAY is the artist, the singer, the storyteller.

by Joe Weissman