Interview: Jen Brett of MOSAIC at Birdland on October 8th

There is a well-circulated stereotype that casts restaurant and club employees as actors making a living between gigs.  That stereotype exists because it is true, much of the time.  Jobbing people working food, drink, and entertainment venues everywhere in the world are often actors making a living, especially in New York City, and especially when the venues are performance venues like, say, Birdland.  But not all of those venues are the places where the stars of tomorrow are discovered - like Birdland.  Many is the time that one of the staff at the fabled jazz club get up to perform, but, like good Aunties and Uncles, Susie Mosher and Jim Caruso have been the ones to get those “kids” up on the stage, at one or both of their weekly shows at Birdland.   Some months ago Jen Brett got up at Jim Caruso’s Cast Party and astonished the audience, this writer being one of the people in the house that night.  Only a week ago, the singing actress played The Lineup With Susie Mosher with her guitar-playing husband Ricky Westrip.  This was in anticipation of her upcoming show MOSAIC, which will be Jen’s New York City debut as a solo artist working in cabaret and concert.

As Jen rehearses her show (while simultaneously jetting off to do gigs in the area), she took twenty minutes of her schedule (literally, just before walking on a stage to sing for a few hours) to talk with Broadway World Cabaret about the High Seas, marriage between musicians, and what it feels like to be taking her solo show debut on a legendary stage.

Get tickets to MOSAIC on October 8th at 5:30 pm HERE.

This interview has been edited for space and content.

Jen Brett, welcome to Broadway World.

Thank you!  I'm happy to be here!

You and I have known each other for a while because you are a part of the Birdland family.

Yes, I do work there and I do have a lot of hats. I wear a lot of hats in that business, but I'm here as a performer, for this show on the eighth.

I see you all the time when I come to Birdland, but I did not know, until I was at Cast Party one night; you came onstage and you sang, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, what has this place been hiding from us?”

 It was Hopelessly Devoted, wasn't It? 

It was Hopelessly Devoted To You. So, the big question is: where have you been hiding? I know you travel a lot.

Yes. So, I graduated from school in 2018 from Theater School at Cap 21, the conservatory at Molloy University, and since then I did some things regionally. I did Elf the Musical, I did Chicago, I did Little Mermaid. After that, I got a job on Celebrity Cruises. I worked there for many, many years. I went all around the world and I wanted to come back and make my way in New York and do more land-based things because I love it here and it's my home. I'm born and raised in New York and I'm happy to be back.

How often do you get to play out, here in the city?

Well, this is, technically, my first cabaret-style show. I have done some concerts at theaters in Long Island, but this is technically my concert/cabaret debut, here at Birdland and in Midtown.

They're really lucky to have you.

(Laughing)  Yeah, I think so. I mean, I hope so. I hope they think so.  (Laughing)

You are trained in musical theater, but you sing all sorts of music, don't you?

Yes, that is one thing about cruise ships that helps you in your career -  it helps you build versatility because I had to sing all types of different things. I had to sing pop, rock, we even did some country, (and some) soul. So I think I'm a very well-rounded performer.

Am I not mistaken, your husband is in the business as well?

Yes. He's also making his splash here in New York City because he is actually from England, which is very exciting, and he's coming to move here. He was trained in jazz music in England and we met when we worked for Celebrity Cruises. He's a guitarist and we are using both of our abilities together. It's going to be a really exciting show because he is a musical genius. He can play everything, as well, he's also extremely versatile. 

So your marriage came out of a showmance?

He actually proposed to me on stage on the ship.

Oh, walk me through that! Put me in that picture. Were you excited? Were you terrified? What was that like?

I actually kind of knew because something really sweet and cute about my husband is he cannot keep a secret. (Laughing)  Ricky is terrible at doing surprises and secrets, so he kind of hinted to me that it was going to happen, and then he accidentally added me to a group chat with plans in it. (Laughing)  So I knew, but it was still extremely special - he made it special with all of the effects. He conducted an entire orchestra to play a song for when he popped the question - it was just gorgeous. 

Does he do all of your arrangements for you?

Yes, he did do all the arrangements that we're going to be playing for Birdland. He's been working very hard on it. He also writes, and he's going to be doing an original song on the eighth.

When you're putting together your first solo show in New York City, and your husband is helping you to arrange it, do you do the writing together or are you writing your show and then checking in with him for feedback? 

I created a set list based on what I thought we would both sound really good playing, things that we knew.  I wanted to do some newer stuff, but I also wanted to keep it simple because obviously the things that I feel comfortable with, I'm going to give a better performance on. So I arranged a set list and he created the arrangements based on what I wanted them to sound like. I would come and I would check in on his laptop and I would make sure that all the measures lined up -  he did so much of the work on his computer, musically, he's very talented that way.

Your resume has... I wanna say classical musical theater, but some of it's pretty current, like The Little Mermaid and Elf. But looking at it, there’s some Cinderella and some Into The Woods. As a woman who is trained in musical theater, how do you meld your voice to the more pop and rock kind of music you play on a cruise ship? Are the techniques very different?

I think that I always had that in me because, growing up, I had very big rock and pop influences in my musical life. I would always listen to pop and rock and they were really my favorite things to sing, as well. So when I went to musical theater school, I kind of just refined that and I learned all sorts of things. We did a pop section as well - we did a semester of that. So I think that I've always had it in me, I (just) needed to go to school to bring it out more. 

Do you sing every day? 

I definitely try to.  Sometimes I need to put on white noise or something because I get self-conscious if there are a lot of people around, so I always try to do it when I know that I can do my best. But I always try to practice at least vocalizing once a day.

With two musicians in one Manhattan household, playing and rehearsing, you must have gotten to know your neighbors.

Well, we haven't had any complaints yet!  (Laughing)

Your husband is a jazz proficient.

He went to Leeds Conservatory of Music in England, and he studied jazz guitar. And when he auditioned for cruise ships, he was playing a little bit of jazz because they do jazz sets on board as well. But he was also very skilled at doing the rock runs and technique that it requires for that because he had the skill in jazz and the musical language.

And with your differing backgrounds, are you finding that you're learning things from each other?

Absolutely. I've gotten so much more inspired by him because he is so musically talented and gifted - he knows everything that there is to know about music theory and he teaches me a lot about that. And I teach him singing lessons, I try to help him open up his voice 'cause he's trying to get into singing as well.

So you guys could be the new boy-girl group on the scene.

That's something we've always talked about, forming a duo, something like that. I think that would be really fun. 

All the travel, all the cruise ships, did you have a favorite place that you saw?

Definitely. We went to Villefranche, which is in between Monaco and Nice, in France. And we loved Monaco and we loved Nice, but something about that little port town… There's a lovely beach and the sand is perfect because it's not real sand, so it doesn't stick to your feet, but it's not rocks, so it doesn't hurt. It's like these gorgeous, tiny little pebbles, and it's perfect. We loved it.

You have married an Englishman: did you guys do the wedding in the UK or Stateside?

We did it on this side of the pond, and we did family only.  We still wanna do a big party at some point, but we had to make it small because of his citizen status, which we are still waiting on. He does have permission to work, though we're still waiting on his green card, which should be coming in the next couple of months.

We'll put lots of positive energy into that for you.

Yes, thank you.

Listening to you talk… Are you guys newlyweds?

Yes, we actually just got married on May 27th, it's very new.

I didn't even know. Yay. Congratulations.

It feels great, but we've sort of almost been married, it feels like, for a while because we've been engaged since September 2021, which is when he proposed to me on the ship. That was a while ago. So it has felt very new, but also very comfortable.

So, play with me:  you and I are at a party, I'm a stranger. You've just met me over the punch bowl. Tell me something that's going to make me have to come see your show.

Well, it's something that I'm sure you've never seen before because we are doing guitar solos all the time, different styles. And it's something that you maybe would not see at Birdland because we're doing every different genre:  we're doing jazz, we're doing rock, we're doing soul, we're doing everything that you can think of, to show our versatility.

How excited are you to be making your New York City solo show debut at legendary Birdland?

I am so excited. And when I found out, when the owner gave me this gig, I was so thankful.  He really does believe in young artists and he does everything he can to help us.  It means a lot. 

Gianni Valenti does a lot to nurture the live music scene, as well as versatility and diversity at Birdland.

Absolutely.

So, you and I are talking while you are actually out of town on a gig.

Yes. I've had a very busy couple of weeks, very busy months, really. Ricky's been arranging everything and fine-tuning things, and he's on another gig a couple of miles away from me right now. We're very busy this weekend, leading up to the show, but we we are prepared enough, it'll be a great show. 

Is it okay to say that you're away doing a wedding?

Yes. 

So if people come to see Mosaic at Birdland and they wanna book you for their wedding, how do they find you online?

They can find me at jenniferbrettb.com. I'm going to be posting about Mosaic on there with a link to it. 

What is the story behind the title of the show, Mosaic?

I was thinking of something that encompassed everything that we're going to be doing. I wanted something that was going to be exciting, and also mean a conglomerate of many different things. And, to me, mosaic is such a beautiful word - it's also something that we have seen a lot of - you know, a lot of Greek style and architecture is mosaic, and we spent a lot of our time in Greece, on the ship. It has a personal meaning and it also has a logistical meaning.

Jen, where are you guys going to honeymoon?

We were just talking about that!  We wanted to go to Japan for the longest time, but we don't know how long it's going to take for us to plan that, so we might just plan to get a gig out there so we can go for free.  (Laughing)  And then we were thinking of maybe going to the Dominican Republic or something like that for just a week and enjoying our time there.

Jennifer Brett, I can't wait to see your show. I'm so excited. Thank you for taking time out today to talk with me, in the middle of your wedding gig!

You are a sweetheart,  I  really appreciate it.

Jen Brett will play Birdland with MOSAIC on October 8th at 5:30 pm.  Reservations are to be made HERE.

Visit Jen Brett’s website HERE.

Photos courtesy of Jen Brett.

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