Jerling's songs pack a wallop with their raw clips of life, from nursing homes to robberies. His writing has romance, whimsy, drama, death, and celebration of the mundane through keen observation. It also occasionally has bite, but always strategically and effectively placed. Very fine album.
-Marilyn O'Malley, Victory Review
True to its title, the latest set by this Saratoga Springs tunesmith plays like an evening surfing through the upper reaches of Starz, Cinemax and HBO, with its choices, more often than not, cast in an autumnal hue.
Michael Jerling protagonists are in the September of their years. On "Dawn Patrol," he chronicles life in an exclusive retirement community, where the greatest danger comes not from outside, but from the inexorable passage of time. On "Dirty Little War," the hero is an aging spy, whose tales of intrigue may exist only in his clouded imagination.
Dreams die hard in Jerling's world - they're as sturdy as the memories imbedded in "These Old Photographs," and as persistent as the Icarus-by-way-of- Sears journey of "The Flying Lawn Chair".
He's a master of the "third act," a shift in reference late in a song that puts it in a new perspective. The secrets unearthed in "Old Henry's House," reveal its owner as far more than a doddering neighbor. the warm reminiscences of "Sweet Soul Music" take on a darker tone as it encompasses one of the most tragic events of the last century.
Recorded primarily in his Saratoga home, there's not a false note struck by Jerling or his backing musicians, including peripatetic bassist Tony Markellis, and guitarist-to-the-stars kevin Maul. their subtle accompaniment is tailor-made for his incisive songs.
The death of his parents since his last album of original songs, 1997's "In Another Life," was the catalyst for this reflective outing, Jerling said.
It's natural that when they're gone you think of your life in a different context, and those feelings were inescapable when I was writing these songs," he said during a recent telephone interview.
Although most of the compositions were composites of past people and experiences, "Dawn Patrol," the album's opening track, drew from a more specific source.
"When my mother died, I had to close the home they had in their retirement complex in Florida," he said. "I was struck by the fragility of the community, the mix of the new energy of the younger arrivals and the unexpected, but inevitable passing of those who didn't return with coming of each winter.
In an odd way it reminded me of the World War I movie that i titled the song after, about flying aces and the tenuousness of their existence."
This year also brought recognition of perhaps his finest song, "Long Black Wall," his spare, haunting reflection of the Vietnam War, included on "Fast Folk: A Community of Singers and Songwriters."
Released by Smithsonian/Folkway Records "Fast Folk" is a compilation honoring the legendary New York songwriter's collective that spawned the careers of Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega and many other artists.
"There were literally hundreds of songs recorded during its existence, and I'm honored that one of mine was among the few chosen for the album," Jerling said.
Despite four stellar albums, Jerling has flown under the national radar for years. This latest disc might be his ticket to greater exposure.
"If it gets me a few more blocks down the road it'll be all right with me," he said with a laugh.
-Mike Curtin, Post Star
The release of a new Michael Jerling album kicks off one of the more pleasant and predictable music scene routines here: a chorus of "oooohs" and "aaaahs" from fans old and new as it takes up residence in CD players far and wide, and a live show at Caffe Lena.
So it is with "Little Movies," Jerling's first release since 1997's "In Another Life." And Jerling will celebrate the release of this very "oooohs" and "aaaahs" -worthy recording with a Caffe Lena show Saturday.
For the first time, Jerling recorded the album in his home studio in Saratoga Springs,with skilled support that frames his tune in elegance, eloquence and strength. He sounds confidently relaxed and in full control of the material, his voice in top form. As usual, he has crafted a stunning set of songs.
-Michael Hochanadel, The Daily Gazette
Embedded in his voice is a storyteller's heart, which rises to the surface as if it were the voice of a people being sung from the mountaintop.
-Thomas Dimopoulos, The Saratogian
In the 25 years Saratoga resident Michael Jerling has been writing, singing, and recording his own songs, he has become the area's best and most consistent mainstream folksinger. Indeed, he may yet to prove to be the late Lena Spencer's most important local gift to the international folk community.
His new album "Little Movies", his first since "In Another Life" in 1997 - is one more stellar addition to his recorded library. he holds a CD release party for that album at the Caffe Saturday night at 9.
The album builds on his long established strengths of compressing complex ideas and mini-stories into concise photographic images.
With the help of old friends and renowned associates, such as bass player Tony Markellis, slide guitarist Kevin Maul and Jerling's wife, Teresina Huxtable, on reed organ and accordion, he continues to lace together comfortable stringed folk melodies perfectly suited to his butterscotch baritone voice.
"Little Movies" also happens to pack a secondary punch that makes it one of the scariest CD's I've ever heard.
If there is an adult equivalent to a Parental Advisory sticker, this album would become the textbook example - not because its obscene, or openly glorifies crimes or sins against society.
No, what it does is take familiar, comforting baby boomer scenarios and drop them into the nightmares of a generation dealing with the imminent death of its parents and its own approaching mortality.
In the last few years, Jerling has lost both his mother and his father. As if to add misery to grief he also lost his dog while making this album.
What all this has done to Jerling's muse is to create nightmarish, sometimes suicidal tableaus out of thoughts that are most often considered cornerstones of comfort for those of us over 50.
Jerling is so skillful at what he does that, like one of Jack the Ripper's victims, you don't realize you're dead until you see your own entrails laid out on the street.
In fact, I listened to this album four times in the car with hardly a clue to its darkness. It was only when I read the beautifully illustrated lyric sheets 15 minutes before I was to interview him that the full impact hit me. I called him and postponed the interview to collect myself.
It's as if Lou Reed decided to collaborate with Norman Rockwell to create a film noir for the 21st century. And the shock of it coming from such a "safe" folksinger is like reading a long Uncle Scrooge epic adventure only to find Scrooge violating Huey, Dewey and Louis on the last page and burying them alive in the money bin.
"Little Movies" is a great album if you can handle it . And my guess is that if you're under 50 with both parents still alive, it will enthrall you like an old Hitchcock movie. But if you're a baby boomer putting yourself in your dying parent's grave emotionally, you may need that imaginary parental advisory sticker.
By the way, I did do the interview with Jerling, but somehow everything he said seemed anticlimactic after listening to this incredible album.
Take, for example, his comment about maturing as a writer: " I think when you're younger, you tend to write more for yourself. as you get older, you see more where you fit in with the people you love and the people around you in the world. If I've learned anything, I think you tend to be less self-referential and to see things more in the web of experience, than just from your own little viewpoint."
You can visit the area's finest folk exponent at michaeljerling.com.
-Don Wilcock, The Record (excerpted)
"As the title suggests, these songs are rich in well-defined visual imagery. They play as mind's eye cinema. The ironic "Sweet Soul Music" juxtaposes a 1965 night at Memphis' Lorraine Motel at the height of the Stax/Volt era, with the 1968 night when Martin Luther King was shot there. Smart writing throughout, with strong production from Tony Markellis".
-Sing Out!