Motherhood puts recording career on hold, but Eade back now

By JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 7, 2008 2:05 PM PDT ∞

A decade ago, Boston-based singer Dominique Eade seemed on the verge of breaking through to the top echelon of the jazz world. She had a string of albums out on Accurate Records and RCA, the critics in the jazz press and daily newspapers were singing her praises to the heavens (and their readers, too), and she was getting good play on the jazz radio stations.

And then, after issuing four albums in seven years, Eade (playing May 8 night at Dizzy's in San Diego) pretty much disappeared after RCA released "Long Way Home" in 1999.

"That's when I had my kids," she said by phone last week of the hiatus in recording, which lasted until "Open," with pianist Jed Wilson, came out in 2006. "I was pregnant when I got my RCA recording contract, and had my second son when I recorded my second album. That was a dizzy period.

"When I had two kids, that was enough to keep me closer to home and performing more in this area and working on my writing.

"They put down their own roots, and you don't want to just drag them away to go away and do your work," she said of having children.

While her two sons (now 11 and 8) may have kept her closer to her New England home, motherhood did nothing to dim the luster of her voice ---- not to judge by the critical acclaim that "Open" received.

Besides continuing to perform, if only locally, during her recording hiatus, Eade said she stayed active in music through her career teaching music at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Interestingly, Eade said she always intended to be a performer ---- but never really considered a career in education ---- not until it happened, anyway.

"I did not expect to teach, although I started teaching while I was still a student. Shortly after I graduated, my teacher retired and they hired me.

"I teach voice, ear training, a jazz vocals traditions ----- a jazz vocal history class.

"It keeps me in the material constantly, and learning new things about it as I guide people through their encounters with music. I learn all the time.

"And I like the combination ---- I don't think I could be a teacher without performing. I feel that it keeps me honest as a teacher. You can say a lot of things that you think people ought to do, but what you do in the moment of actual music making is where you find your true center, for better or worse."

Eade said she grew up an Air Force brat ---- her father having received a battlefield commission in the Army Air Corps during World War II, later rising to the rank of general. Like most military brats, her family moved around quite a bit as she was growing up. But Eade said her father was assigned to a base near Omaha, Neb., for most of her elementary school years, which allowed her to have consistent piano and ballet lessons during that time.

The youngest of five, Eade said that her older siblings introduced her to popular music in the late 1960s and early '70s, but she was always drawn to jazz. At 15, she bought her first record ---- "Mercy Mercy Mercy" by Cannonball Adderley.

Still, when Eade began writing her own songs in high school, she performed them on vocals and guitar in a folk vein at area coffeehouses around Stuttgart, Germany, where the family was then living. When a friend recently sent her a cassette tape of some demos that she recorded at that time (she said it was found under a cushion in her friend's family's vacation home), she was surprised at how good she sounded on guitar.

"I was a pretty good guitar player," she said, laughing, "which surprised me, because I don't play anymore."

Now that she's back to recording, Eade said she's been writing a lot of new material ---- songs that should see their way to CD in the near future.

"I'm working on a couple of things; one is a duo record with my longtime collaborator Ran Blake, and we're in the midst of recording that, and I also have some other projects."

Dominique Eade with Jed Wilson

When: 7:30 p.m. May 8

Where: Dizzy's, San Diego Wine & Culinary Center, Harbor Club Towers, Second Avenue & J Street, San Diego

Admission: $15

Info: (858) 270-7467 or dizzyssandiego.com

Web: dominiqueeade.com

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