Tuesday, March 05, 2002

In 1996, singer Lee Aaron was at a crossroads. Though she had made nine platinum and gold-selling rock records and had toured the world several times over, the rock business had taken its toll on her both financially and spiritually.

Aaron, then 33, had soured on being a rock star. The gigs were no longer fun, and with the popularity of grunge, her metal-rock act seemed out of synch with current tastes.

She took a year off, and during that time she decided what she would metamorphose into.

A jazz singer.

Aaron, whose real name is Karen Lynn Greening, had wanted to try singing jazz ever since, at age 22, she heard a Nina Simone record playing at a Berlin club where she performed with her rock band. She bought that record, and continued to buy jazz recordings.

"I was getting older, and I was evolving spiritually and emotionally," says Aaron of her transformation. She spoke from an office at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, where she was rehearsing for her multiple roles in the new opera 120 Songs for the Marquis de Sade. Despite her rock image as a brassy, tough-talking dynamo, in conversation the auburn-haired Aaron comes across as both eloquent and elegant.

"Even though I had success in rock, I felt tremendously stereotyped by the industry. I was really feeling the need to redefine myself personally as well.

"The problem with the rock industry is it's not just about the music. It's about being able to survive within the parameters of the industry itself. When there's a lot of money involved, there are a lot of outside pressures and influences. By 1996 I had pretty much had it, and I needed to do something that would make my soul happy."

Aaron, who had moved to Vancouver in 1995, rehearsed with a pianist, then put on a few shows at small venues.

"I didn't know how they would be received," Aaron recalls. "Because of the way I'd been pigeonholed in the past, I knew I was setting myself up to be slaughtered by some of the purist jazz critics. But I couldn't allow that to prevent me from moving forward with my personal goals. As human beings, we often allow ourselves to make decisions based on outside influences."

As it turned out, most jazz listeners embraced the change. Her rock fans were slower to come around.

"Rock people want you to be their rock goddess forever. They were a divided camp. Some of them don't get what I'm trying to do, and some of them have evolved and grown up and they're looking for new things to listen to and they hear me doing something that appeals to them now."

Aaron's transition came at the time of the short-lived lounge music craze, when young people in their 20s dressed up like dames and dandies from the 1940s, sipping cocktails while listening to retro jazz. For a while, Aaron got lumped in with the loungers, although no one associates her with that scene now.

Last year, she released her first jazz CD, Slick Chick. Last month, she appeared with fellow jazz singers Stevie Vallance, Kate Hammett-Vaughan, Christine Duncan, Karin Plato and Angela Kelman at the in Divas for Love concert at the Vogue.

Aaron loves the freedom she has as a jazz artist.

"When you've committed something to an album in the pop-rock culture, as a general rule fans want to hear it emulated exactly as it is on the album. When you don't, there may be some disappointment involved.

"There was a point in my life when I'd been touring for almost 14 months straight for [the album] Bodyrock, when I felt that if I had to sing that Whatcha Do To My frickin' Body song one more time I was going to cut my wrists.

"Jazz is so much less structured. There's so much room for improvisation of melody and form and harmony. I don't sing any song exactly the same every night. Anything can happen at any time. Sometimes the solos will be extended. Sometimes I may take a form and scat-sing. That's the beauty of it. Jazz is purely instinctual music, and you get to play great songs as well."

When it's suggested that switching from rock to jazz involves a large drop in income, Aaron replies with a positive statement.

"There isn't the pressure to write a hit song. You can record a jazz album in a week, whereas I've been in the studio for three months solid doing a rock album, labouring for days over a line."

Now, Aaron is trying a new form: opera. Aaron came to the opera when Lauri Lister, percussionist in one of Aaron's bands, recommended her to composer Peter Hannan. After hearing her perform live, Hannan asked her to audition. She tried out for a different role than her current ones (Aaron, like most of the performers in 120 Songs for the Marquis de Sade, plays multiple roles in the opera).

"All four of my characters are tied by a common motivation," she says. "My motivation is I want to see the Marquis strung up for the way he treats women."

While opera offers a new wrinkle in Aaron's career, she's an old hand at dramatic productions. From ages five to 17, she was involved in school productions and community theatre in Toronto.

"I've always loved theatre," she says. "It's not as though I consciously sit at home and plot my next career move. This is something I sort of stumbled on.

"That said, four years ago when I got back to singing jazz, I made a spiritual decision to be open to whatever artistic opportunities the universe wanted to thrown into my path."

Aaron has no long-range career plan, other than to do something that's fulfilling.

"I used to really hang on to long-range goals, but I don't really do that any more. The only thing I have is a commitment to being an artist, and I'm willing to take myself wherever that path leads me."

© Copyright 2002 Vancouver Sun

SOURCE: Vancouver Sun