Jill Tracy
Encyclopedia
Jill Tracy is a singer, pianist, writer, composer
, and performance artist based in San Francisco.
Known for her dark, evocative, cinematic style, Jill Tracy states that some of her biggest childhood influences were film score composers such as Bernard Herrmann
, and classic suspense tales, including Alfred Hitchcock
and Fritz Lang
films, Ray Bradbury
stories, and Rod Serling
's The Twilight Zone
. She is listed in San Francisco Magazines Top 100 Creative Forces in the Bay Area, has been awarded "Best of the Bay" by San Francisco Bay Guardian, has been nominated for two California Music Awards and SF Weekly Music Awards.
Following her 1996 solo debut CD Quintessentially Unreal, Tracy released Diabolical Streak (1999), her first studio album featuring The Malcontent Orchestra. The song "Evil Night Together" was awarded the SIBL international Grand Prize for songwriting. The album was listed among the "Top 10 Neo-Cabaret albums of all time" in Shift magazine.
"The Fine Art of Poisoning," also from Diabolical Streak, became an animated short film in 2003, a collaboration with Bay Area animator Bill Domonkos. "The Fine Art of Poisoning" has garnered film festival awards internationally, including Best Experimental Film in the 2003 New Orleans Film Festival as well as Best Music Video in both the 2003 Chicago and Seattle International Film Festivals.
Jill Tracy and The Malcontent Orchestra's original score to F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent vampire
classic Nosferatu debuted live at San Francisco’s Foreign Cinema in 1999 and toured Northern California theatres during Halloween season for five consecutive years. This led to the 2002 CD release Into the Land of Phantoms, selections from the Nosferatu score.
Jill Tracy released her fourth album, The Bittersweet Constrain, in 2008 produced by Alex Nahas. This album has a heavier sonic edge with the addition of exotic instruments such as the sarod, harmonium, and Chapman Stick. This first single and video from The Bittersweet Constrain is "Haunted by the Thought of You."
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, and performance artist based in San Francisco.
Known for her dark, evocative, cinematic style, Jill Tracy states that some of her biggest childhood influences were film score composers such as Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
, and classic suspense tales, including Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
and Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
films, Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
stories, and Rod Serling
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter, novelist, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen and helped form...
's The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
. She is listed in San Francisco Magazines Top 100 Creative Forces in the Bay Area, has been awarded "Best of the Bay" by San Francisco Bay Guardian, has been nominated for two California Music Awards and SF Weekly Music Awards.
Following her 1996 solo debut CD Quintessentially Unreal, Tracy released Diabolical Streak (1999), her first studio album featuring The Malcontent Orchestra. The song "Evil Night Together" was awarded the SIBL international Grand Prize for songwriting. The album was listed among the "Top 10 Neo-Cabaret albums of all time" in Shift magazine.
"The Fine Art of Poisoning," also from Diabolical Streak, became an animated short film in 2003, a collaboration with Bay Area animator Bill Domonkos. "The Fine Art of Poisoning" has garnered film festival awards internationally, including Best Experimental Film in the 2003 New Orleans Film Festival as well as Best Music Video in both the 2003 Chicago and Seattle International Film Festivals.
Jill Tracy and The Malcontent Orchestra's original score to F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
classic Nosferatu debuted live at San Francisco’s Foreign Cinema in 1999 and toured Northern California theatres during Halloween season for five consecutive years. This led to the 2002 CD release Into the Land of Phantoms, selections from the Nosferatu score.
Jill Tracy released her fourth album, The Bittersweet Constrain, in 2008 produced by Alex Nahas. This album has a heavier sonic edge with the addition of exotic instruments such as the sarod, harmonium, and Chapman Stick. This first single and video from The Bittersweet Constrain is "Haunted by the Thought of You."
Albums
- Quintessentially UnrealQuintessentially UnrealQuintessentially Unreal is the debut album by American Neo-Cabaret artist Jill Tracy, released in 1996. It was nominated for California Music Awards in 1997 and 1998. Selections from the album were used on an NBC Hard Copy segment on Absinthe....
(1996) - Diabolical StreakDiabolical StreakDiabolical Streak is the second studio album by American Neo-Cabaret artist Jill Tracy, released in 1999.-Track listing:...
(1999) - Into the Land of PhantomsInto the Land of PhantomsInto the Land of Phantoms is the third studio album by American Neo-Cabaret artist Jill Tracy and the Malcontent Orchestra, released in 2002. It is their score to F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent vampire classic Nosferatu.-Track listing:...
(2002) - The Bittersweet Constrain (2008)
- BENEATH: The Bittersweet Constrain (2011)
Compilations
- "Meantime" on Market Street, Best of Café du Nord (live) (2000)
- "Evil Night Together" on SIBL (Songs Inspired by Literature) Artists for Literacy (2002)
- "Evil Night Together" on Projekt’s A Dark CabaretA Dark Cabaret-Track listing:#The Dresden Dolls – "Coin-Operated Boy" – 4:46#Revue Noir – "Sometimes, Sunshine" – 3:54#Jill Tracy – "Evil Night Together" – 4:33#Katzenjammer Kabarett – "Gemini Girly Song" – 4:28...
(2005) - "Torture" on The Sepiachord Companion (2009)
- "In Between Shades" on Projekt’s A Dark Cabaret 2 (2011)
Films
- In the Wake (2001) Jill Tracy narrates the film, the song "Extraordinary" is featured in the score.
- The Fine Art of Poisoning (2003) short film collaboration/music video project with animator Bill Domonkos.
- Heavy Put Away (2003) appears as nightclub singer, performed piano score, "Evil Night Together" is the film's end title song.
- Ice Cream Ants (2006) stars as the sinister Mona, performed/composed title song "Pulling Your Insides Out."
- The Black DahliaThe Black Dahlia (film)The Black Dahlia is a 2006 neo noir crime film directed by Brian De Palma. It is based on the novel of the same name by James Ellroy, writer of L.A. Confidential and starred Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank. The story is based on the murder of Elizabeth Short...
(2007) composed/performed the song "Pulling Your Insides Out." - NERVOUS96 (2011) Jill Tracy and violinist Paul Mercer scored this surreal short from filmmaker Bill Domonkos
TV
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Ion Network) - features Jill Tracy's song "Evil Night Together".
- Jekyll (BBC) - features "Evil Night Together".
- NCISNCIS (TV series)NCIS, formerly known as NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is an American police procedural drama television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducts criminal investigations involving the U.S...
(CBS-TV) Episode "Ravenous" - features "Evil Night Together".
Written Works
- The Keeper of the Shop- published in Morbid Curiosity Magazine #6
- The Next Best Thing to Stevie Nicks- published in Morbid Curiosity Magazine #8
- The Keeper of the Shop- published in anthology Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues (Scribner 2009)
- At Louche Ends- Jill Tracy writes foreword for Maria Alexander poetry collection (Burning Effigy Press 2011))
External links
Interviews
- Mysteria Woman: Jill Tracy interview in Metropolitan Magazine
- Woman of Mystery: Jill Tracy Interview in SFist
- A Musical Seance: Jill Tracy Interview in San Francisco Chronicle
- by the Thought of Jill Tracy: Coilhouse article
- I'll Hold Your Hand While They Drag the River: An Interview with Jill Tracy in TOR
- Jill Tracy chats with Morbid Curiosity Magazine editor Loren Rhoads
- The Elegant Side of the Netherworld: Jill Tracy Interview in LA WEEKLY
- Jill Tracy Interview in Sepiachord