I am Marga Jee and I like to think about myself as a ladybird of soul, blues and jazz. With a bit of funk and rock… I started to sing when I was born (Turin, Italy) and I did my first live performance at a family party with grandfather’s band, singing Italian folk songs, at the age of 6. When I was 12 I started to attend guitar lessons studying fingerpicking and blue-grass. I kept on till when I was 16, and then I realized that my true passion was that of singing and guitar would only be a support to that. Up to the age of 22 I was in several bands of different genre (both in London where I lived for 3 years and in Italy), from American folk to new wave, and I used to compose most of the songs on the guitar. After that I started to study jazz singing and to work as a back-vocals singer in a rock band where I stayed for 3 years. It was a very hard job because the genre was not really mine. Yet there I discovered the pleasure of back singing that requires a lot of discipline and humbleness and leads the singer to make a big shift of perspective and to use the voice as an instrument, just as it happens to brass or string instruments when they play in sessions. During that experience I started to get interested in soul and gospel music, which I was listening to in order to learn the harmonizing style. When I was 26 I founded my first soul band, Meglio Soul (see myspace/megliosoul), that was gathering the best of musicians and female singers of my city. We were 3, sometimes 4 or 5 singers, shifting from solo to back vocals singing. We used to sing songs by Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, E,W&F… choosing the pieces based on harmony singing and giving space also to gospel, blues, funky and new jazz. It was an extraordinary adventure that gave me a lot of thrill and wonderful memories of amazing live performances. The band was started in 1992 and is still alive, although I left it 5 years ago. In the last years I’d rather sing alone with bands of different genre and nationality. I’m working on my personal style, which channels the different tendencies of my background. Along through the years I have been composing a lot of songs on the guitar. Sometimes I performed them on stage but they were mostly meant to be my intimate music moments with myself, expression of feelings, emotions and sensations. Just lately I decided to put them on CD which I’m working on right now. At the moment I am participating to a multimedia East-West fusion project with tabla player Uday Deshpande that will run for San Francisco Short Film Festival. It is a project inspired, created and produced by PhD Pradeep Wagh, director of Development Education (International) Society, Pune. I perform on regular basis with a Pune band, Takabanda (see profile myspace/takabanda), formerly Marga Jee and the Soulchasers, with guitar player Derek Julien and with the Jazz Band “Sharp Seven†directed by the German pianist Klaus Savel, best known as Chhand (this band is available in India only during the winter season). What gives me joy in live performances is the thrill of singing anything and to just make it mine. I have heard say that the poet is the one who turns feelings into words and that the singer is the one who turns words into feelings…. This is singing for me…THE ARE BACK!!!!
After a long long break with Marga Jee on vocals, Derek Julien on guitars, Jack Barde on acustic guitar, vocals and drums, Among Jamir on bass! Soon at Shisha Jazz Café, Pune