Jen Jayden & The Greenstone

Jennifer Jayden has been a winner in this competition several times over... October '05, May '06 and Dec '07.
- www.songoftheyear.com

Just recieved the LA Music Awards nomination of Female Singer/Songswriter in the Acoustic Category.

- LA Music Awards

"Jayden projects a soulful optimism on her cleanly recorded CD. “Supergirl” shows off Jayden’s terrific voice, reminding us of Dido on a song about being crazy in love. “Maybe” unleashes an even wider dynamic range for her voice." - Music Connection Magazine

SNOCAP featured the song "Supergirl" as their "free download of the week." - SNOCAP

Living a dream

BY JORDAN BARTEL, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Sunday, October 15, 2006

In a small way, Jennifer Jayden owes a bit of thanks to popular singer Gavin DeGraw for her own burgeoning music career.??Jennifer, a Westminster native, met DeGraw backstage at a concert before he made it big. She told him his music had inspired her to pursue her own career.??The conversation was short, but pleasant enough. Jennifer gave him a rough cut of what would become her first album, you know, just if he had a chance to listen.??Two weeks later, she got a call, on her birthday no less.??"Hello, this is Gavin."??"Gavin who?" was Jennifer's response.??DeGraw had listened to her album and he told her what tracks he liked and what he didn't. The singer also had some words of wisdom.??"No one knows what they're doing in the music business," he told Jennifer. "It's all trial and error. Do your own thing and keep doing it.
So Jennifer did. After languishing in a holding pattern, not sure whether or not to pursue her music career dreams, to make that scary leap into the music business, she decided to go for it.??"That moment was the moment that prompted me to fully believe that I can really, really make a go of it," Jennifer said. "His words just clicked."??It turns out that so far it has been a leap worth taking. Jennifer moved to San Diego just a few months ago, as her first album "Lost Along the Way" was released.??Jennifer has been busy booking her own shows, sending her album to local radio stations and has been discovering exactly what it takes to promote oneself in the music business.??And it seems like it all has paid off. Jennifer was recently nominated for a pair of Los Angeles Music Awards, for female singer/songwriter of the year and album of the year. In the past 16 years, previous nominees of the awards, handed out in November and honoring mostly unsigned acts, include little bands now known as No Doubt and Everclear.??"Total surprise to be nominated," Jennifer said. "I never know what to expect anymore. It's nerve-wracking, because it is my career. But it's also very fun."??Always the performer??Jennifer was born Jennifer Minchik in Westminster. She started playing piano at the age of 4, then did ballet and chorus throughout her early school days. She hadn't really figured singing, or for that matter songwriting, would be her thing.??She had always been known primarily for her piano skills, until she sang during a talent show in the auditorium of Westminster High School.??"People started commenting about my voice and it kind of went on from there," Jennifer said.??It went from there to college, when Jennifer studied musical theater at Elon College, now Elon University in North Carolina??She knew she wanted to be a singer, and after freshman year she got her first job, performing at the amusement park Carowinds, near Charlotte, N.C., doing five shows a day.??"This is going to date me, but I remember them coming up to me and wanting me to try a song by this new singer named Celine Dion," Jennifer said with a laugh.??After graduation, her Celine Dion days thankfully behind her, Jennifer started doing regional theater work, the most notable of which was a stint at a dinner theater in Florida.??After that, she toyed with the idea of moving to New York City. She wasn't really excited about the move, but did so anyway. She was there for just a month. The pull to perform on Broadway had just not been strong enough.??"I was overwhelmed by the big city," she said. "I was just kind of lost. I didn't have any clue what to audition for, how to go about it."??Then a cruise line came a knocking. Jennifer was about to set sail.??Let's cruise??A cruiseline might not seem like the best or most glamorous way to launch a singing career, but when she was asked by Royal Carribbean to sign a contract, she did and left the next day for her new job.??For about five years - she also spent years with Princess Cruises as well - she was the lead singer on cruise shows, playing to crowds, which ranged from 500 to 2,000 nightly. That's a bigger audience than any role in Broadway could have provided her. For eight years, she had a steady - and importantly, paying - gig singing in three to six shows a week.??"The performance experience that that gave me was invaluable," she said. "But after five years or so, it was like, 'What am I going to do?' "??So she bought herself a guitar and taught herself to play. She also started writing her own songs. While biding her time on the ship, she also met the man who would become her husband, Clint Boire, a sound engineer who worked on her shows.??He encouraged her to pursue a career on land.??(A bit of a sidenote: Boire is Jennifer's real last name. Jayden was "stolen" from the name of a child of a friend. She just thought "Jayden" sounded better with her first name as a performer.)??Soon she was cutting what would become her first album.??"The recording came about just with Clint and the other musician - Carroll County Times

"Each song is special and honest, giving the listener the feeling of being in on a private conversation. It's one thing to sing the notes and get the words out at the right time. It's another to make those words feel like personal, deeply felt messages per personal experience. (I flick my Bic to anyone who gets that trick down pat.) 'Flick.'...
They say if you want someone to listen more closely, just whisper. Shhh.. and visit:
www.jenniferjayden.com." - San Diego Troubadour

XMU debuted Jayden as "an up and coming artist to watch out for." - XM radio's "Radar Report"

Live shows usually offer an incredible sense of force and passion from the musicians involved. Jennifer Jayden is no exception to this idea. In fact, she enforces this concept fully. She opened her show at Borders Bookstore in Carmel Mountain Ranch with a piano set. Immediately, I could feel that she had soul. It was obvious in her voice as well as her stage presence and facial expressions. By the time she played the third song, "Back to the Love," I had no doubt that Jen Jayden was exactly where she should be.
"Back to the Love" is played on the piano and has an amazingly catching chorus. It demonstrates her extensive vocal range perfectly: Jayden can go from hushed, low vocals to almost forced high notes.

While speaking to her in between sets, she mentioned that performances of other artists influence her own music. She continued this thought by quickly naming local concerts that she has attended lately, including Ernie Halter and Skyler Stonestreet. When it comes to Southern California music, Jayden knows her stuff.
Jayden started off the second set with the song "Jaded" (which can be found off of her live CD, "Lost Along the Way"). While the first set was played on the piano, she now used a guitar. The sound obviously changed slightly, but she did not hesitate at all and maintained the same quality performance as ever. Her second song of the set was a cover of The Police's "Message in a Bottle." By the second verse, she was completely rocking out and making the song her own. It was an amazing acoustic cover of the song filled with an incredible drive.
Throughout the entire show, a steady crowd filled the seats in the art section of Borders. The audience ranged from a tiny little girl to older adults, each finding something about Jayden's music to pull them in. In true Borders fashion, shoppers passing by the area stopped to listen for at least a moment. Luckily, the performance was also decently amplified to the entire bookstore.
This year, Jayden will be teaching voice lessons in the day, playing an increasing number of shows in the evenings, and possibly moving to Los Angeles (but always returning frequently to San Diego). She hopes to be able to release an EP by May, but this idea is just in the planning stages right now.
- San Diego Area Music (SDAM)

Material: Jen Jayden delivers a very commercial style of soulful pop and possesses a lilting voice similiar to Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton. "Back to the Love" is an apology for messed up relationships and would work well in any teen TV drama. "Rescue Me" uses a unique perspective, telling the tale of drug abuse and addiction. Most importantly, Jayden has several tunes that are catchy enough to get radio play.
Musicianship: Jayden's voice is her primary instrument. At times, it softly floats on the wind and then it might suddenly pierce the ambience as the mood of a song transitions. Jeffrey David is a virtuoso, both on keyboards and guitar, carrying the melody throughout. The backline of Johnson and Sydnor is impressive and provides a firm foundation for the rest of the band. Ten-year-old Sierota steals the show with her soaring background vocals and her timely percussion.
Performance: Cleebrating the release of her first CD, which was produced by Jeffrey David, Jayden was particularly on target with radio-ready tunes like "Rescue Me" as well as "Unpredictable." Her performance of "Rescue Me" was sensuous and stirring. Jayden used a good sense of humor and rapport with the audience to keep them focused on her music, while her narrative approach kept the crowd interested in what she had to say. She closed strongly, and left the club wanting more.
Summary: Jen Jayden's vocals, lyrics and catchy melodies make her music much more powerful and enjoyable than your typical run-of -the-mill pop artist. Her tunes are approprate for radio as well as television and film.
-Bob Leggett - Music Connection Magazine

Live shows usually offer an incredible sense of force and passion from the musicians involved. Jennifer Jayden is no exception to this idea. In fact, she enforces this concept fully. She opened her show at Borders Bookstore in Carmel Mountain Ranch with a piano set. Immediately, I could feel that she had soul. It was obvious in her voice as well as her stage presence and facial expressions. By the time she played the third song, "Back to the Love," I had no doubt that Jen Jayden was exactly where she should be.
"Back to the Love" is played on the piano and has an amazingly catching chorus. It demonstrates her extensive vocal range perfectly: Jayden can go from hushed, low vocals to almost forced high notes.

While speaking to her in between sets, she mentioned that performances of other artists influence her own music. She continued this thought by quickly naming local concerts that she has attended lately, including Ernie Halter and Skyler Stonestreet. When it comes to Southern California music, Jayden knows her stuff.
Jayden started off the second set with the song "Jaded" (which can be found off of her live CD, "Lost Along the Way"). While the first set was played on the piano, she now used a guitar. The sound obviously changed slightly, but she did not hesitate at all and maintained the same quality performance as ever. Her second song of the set was a cover of The Police's "Message in a Bottle." By the second verse, she was completely rocking out and making the song her own. It was an amazing acoustic cover of the song filled with an incredible drive.
Throughout the entire show, a steady crowd filled the seats in the art section of Borders. The audience ranged from a tiny little girl to older adults, each finding something about Jayden's music to pull them in. In true Borders fashion, shoppers passing by the area stopped to listen for at least a moment. Luckily, the performance was also decently amplified to the entire bookstore.
This year, Jayden will be teaching voice lessons in the day, playing an increasing number of shows in the evenings, and possibly moving to Los Angeles (but always returning frequently to San Diego). She hopes to be able to release an EP by May, but this idea is just in the planning stages right now.
- San Diego Area Music (SDAM)

Jennifer - Thanks for submitting, and thanks for sharing your talents as a writer and performer with the rest of the world. I hear a lot of great stuff here at Taxi, but every once in awhile a performer comes along that seems on a completely different level from everybody else. In regard to your abilities as vocalist, I would say you have an outrageous amount of talent. Saying that you're the best vocalist I've heard here at Taxi in a long time might seem like hyperbole, but I mean it. - TAXI - the indie A&R vehicle

Jennifer - Thanks for submitting, and thanks for sharing your talents as a writer and performer with the rest of the world. I hear a lot of great stuff here at Taxi, but every once in awhile a performer comes along that seems on a completely different level from everybody else. In regard to your abilities as vocalist, I would say you have an outrageous amount of talent. Saying that you're the best vocalist I've heard here at Taxi in a long time might seem like hyperbole, but I mean it. - TAXI - the indie A&R vehicle