PRESSEKIT
Photograph : Fred Courtois, photos libre de droits
Photo : Fred Courtois, libre de droits
Photograph : Fred Courtois, photos libre de droits
Photograph : Fred Courtois, photos libre de droits
EPK
download photos | credits : Fred Courtois, libre de droits/ no copyright
German-Dutch singer Marijke Jaehrling is the ultimate multidisciplinary artist! Composer, songwriter, arranger, singing teacher, set designer, and actress, she signes for several musical and theatrical creations. With a vocal range of more than four octaves, becoming a singer was an obvious choice for Marijke Jaehrling from childhood. She first was trained as an actress, which quickly led to roles in various musicals. She than worked out her singing skills with countertenor Oliver May (Germany) and her jazz skills with Diethra Bishop (Hilversum, NL) and Fay Victor in New York. Her immersion in jazz was confirmed by her role as Billie Holiday in the play “Billie's Blues” she wrote for the West Side Theatre (Darmstadt, Germany), that ran the secene from 2012-2016 and it was evidenced by her various collaborations and projects, including three CDs as a leader, arranger, composer/lyricist, released in Germany, the United States, and France. To mark what would have been Billie Holiday's 110th birthday in 2025, German-Dutch jazz singer Marijke Jaehrling pays her a vibrant tribute with her new album “Portrait of a Lady - THE BILLIE HOLIDAY STORY” (ACEL, Paris).
She paints a multi-layered musical portrait of Billie Holiday, torn between her desire for love and her determination to follow her own path. In this album, Marijke revisits the most striking themes of the short life of “Lady Day,” a strong woman who, as an African American, had the courage to smash the great “Strange Fruit,” a vibrant indictment of racism, into the face of humanity
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Press-Quote Lionel Eskenazy, Les étoiles du Jazz, june 2025:
" A wonderful surprise! It's so difficult to cover Billie Holiday's repertoire without falling into mimicry and unwelcome mannerisms... Marijke Jaehrling does a great job and chooses a beautiful selection of songs performed by Billie. She is accompanied by an excellent band (sax, piano, double bass) where the absence of drums brings an airy and light touch to these superb songs.""
I« "Since a long time, Billie stuck under my skin. So, I wanted to immerse myself in everything that made up her life, without resorting to clichés. I chose an intimate setting with my long-time musical companions, without drums, to give free rein to the multifaceted timbre of my voice and the sound qualities of the instruments. On my album “Portrait of a Lady - The Billie Holiday Story,” I wrote the arrangements for Billie Holiday's main songs, such as “Strange Fruit,” “Lover Man,” and “God Bless the Child,” as well as her adaptations such as “All of Me,” a song from a musical that she transformed into a jazz standard through her interpretation, like many other songs that now form part of the jazz repertoire thanks to Billie Holiday's immense talent. To make the connection with current events, I wrote the new song “Lampedusa,” a grim nod to the racism that Billie Holiday suffered. It hasn't disappeared at all, it has simply changed form". Marijke Jaehrling
Pressequotes
"Portrait of a Lady" concerts Germany
“An evening you won't soon forget! Lover Man', 'Lady Sings the Blues', 'All of me' - she lays out the songs like shimmering pearls before her audience. Marijke Jaehrling sings the famous and lesser-known songs, sometimes cool, sometimes provocative, or with passion, such as Billie Holiday's worldwide hit from 1939, “Strange Fruit”. once again demonstrating her respectable vocal range”
Starkenburger Echo, Sigrid Jahn
“Marijke Jaehrling offers not only her voice but also her soul to classic numbers like “That Ole Devil Called Love” or “Them There Eyes”. She brings both melancholic ballads and livelier numbers to life, thanks to her great voice and acting skills”
Rhein-Main -Spitze, Sergio Presta
“Vocally and musically a mature success, accompanied by this jazz trio who, with great sensitivity, add the necessary grain of swing”
Radio HR2, Martin Grunenberg
“A grandiose celebration of melancholy”. Main Echo, Jan Stich
“Marijke Jährling sings in her very unique way, with great emotion and sensitivity, sometimes fragile, sometimes lascivious, cool, relaxed or with vibrato...”
Jazzpages, Klaus Mümpfer
"Bonjour Liberté" 2024 ACEL, Paris
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"This is really, really good! It's a great arrangement, it's well recorded. It gives me goose bumps"
Alf Haubitz, Radio HR2
"Supported by the elastic, swinging spirit of the combo, Marijke Jaehrling has made a dozen works by Kurt Tucholsky and Kurt Weill her own, switching deftly between jazz, chanson and cabaret, with great care and empathy. Marijke sings the pieces with a sonorous, unpretentious voice, as an authentic signal of tolerance and freedom."
Tobias Böcker, Jazzpodium
"Spheres of Monk" 2017 Dot Time Records, NewYork
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​"Sounds great, Lady. Excellence" Th. Monk III, son of the legend
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„georgeous… (she has) a knack for original arrangements… that she ads her own lyrics to some songs is another advantage of the album that’s compilated with care” Jazzthing
„Dignified! Jährling sings the often complicated melodic lines with a nonchalant matter of course. … … she takes the cake of originality!
Jazzthetic
"The artist's concept is absolutely exceptional in the world of jazz. Marijke Jaehrling approaches the highly complex piano compositions of the jazz legend in such a way as to result in sophisticated arrangements for voice, piano, double bass, drums and saxophone/clarinette, which in every detail make proof of the exceptional craftsmanship of Marijke Jaehrling, who also wrote her own lyrics for several of the songs, also in German and even French. Jaehrling's extremely agile voice is rich and varied, with a gentle warmth in the lower register and a sovereign maturity in the midrange and high notes with the lightness of a young girl. She has a natural agility that she displayed brilliantly in scats and vocalizations, as well as in the extreme ranges of Monk's songs."
Wormser Zeitung, Viktoria Selbert
"This is quite fancy“
Radio HR 2, Jazz Now
“It’s said about Monk, that he has developed a unique sense of ‘playing the right thing at the right moment’. Similarly, Marijke Jährling & Band succeeds in transmitting Monks musical vocabulary to a modern quintet and to transfer it, in addition, to a voice,this is almost bold. Great applause with the full crowd in"
Ulfert Goeman, Darmstädter Echo
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“An exciting experiment with fascinating arrangements”
Bettina Bergstedt, Allgemeine Zeitung
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