The loss of Jessi Zazu to cervical cancer four months ago cut deep, affecting a broad swath of Nashville’s various music scenes. That much was obvious to The Spin from the number and diversity of guest artists who played at Ain't Afraid: Songs of Jessi Zazu and Those Darlins, the Jan. 11 tribute to Jessi at Mercy Lounge that also served as a fundraising kickoff for a nonprofit organization her family has started. Before the show began, we got a primer on the goals of Jessi Zazu Inc., which will further causes she supported, including youth arts education, awareness of women’s health issues and access to care and peaceful social justice — there’s a new website at jessizazu.org with more information, including ways you can help.
The death of someone you know and care about is not a thing you get over, exactly, but you instead learn how to live with it. Doing good things in honor of the person, as Jessi Zazu Inc. is doing, is a great way to turn that negative into a positive. But the show itself was far more than a means to the end of getting people in the door and filling the organization’s coffers. For two-and-a-half hours, a parade of performers played songs from the repertoire of Those Darlins (not just their catalog, as there were a few choice covers), the top-shelf country-punk-rock band that Jessi co-founded as a teenager and played with for 10 years. The performances were a testament to Jessi’s powerful songwriting and performing as well as the effect she had on people around her. She was the kind of badass who made you believe that you could be a badass too, of which we saw evidence throughout the night.
The core of the house band was champion drummer Jerry Pentecost with Jessi's Those Darlins bandmates Linwood Regensburg and Kelley Anderson on guitars and Music Band’s Duncan Shea on bass. Like in a Darlins show of old, there was plenty of swapping around, and other players rotated in and out too: Leah Miller and Heather Moulder alternating on keys, Ellen Angelico on pedal steel, Larissa Maestro and Kyshona Armstrong on harmony vocals, and Buddy Hughen on guitar for some of the songs written after Anderson left the Darlins in 2012.
Jasmin Kaset
Ariel Bui was the first singer up, singing “Waste Away,” a gorgeous deep cut from the Darlins’ second record Screws Get Loose, as the band swelled up behind her. Jessica McFarland and Mimi Galbierz of Savoy Motel (among other acts), decked out like space hippies, came out next for a snarling and smoldering “Mystic Mind.” Bully’s Alicia Bognanno followed, embracing the melancholy in “Can’t Think” from the Darlins’ swan song Blur the Line, while Music Band’s Harry Kagan led the stripped-back take on “Too Slow.”
Our photographer Steve Cross, who shot Those Darlins many times over the years, noticed something cool. Several of the performers were using little mannerisms that echoed the ones Jessi used when she performed the songs, like Caitlin Rose bouncing on the balls of her feet and letting her voice shake during the crescendo of “Optimist,” or Jasmin Kaset’s intense stare as she prowled the stage during “Be Your Bro.” It wasn’t so much that they were mimicking Jessi, but they evoked her spirit by acting out bits that had become woven into the meaning of the song. That’s another piece of Jessi's influence: She showed everyone that it was OK and even necessary to get physical, and maybe even go a little nuts sometimes.
The first set also included Becca Mancari on "Western Sky" from Blur the Line, as well as notable throwbacks to Those Darlins’ self-titled debut, including “Red Light Love” with Regensburg on the lead vocal, and the Carter Family’s “Cannonball Blues,” sung by Anderson. We’d never really cared much for “222,” but Taylor Cole put every ounce of energy he had into it, and it was hard not to love his version. Thelma and the Sleaze’s Lauren “LG” Gilbert wrapped the set with a perfectly raucous version of the best original song the Darlins never released, a talking blues number about equality in the music business called “Guitar World.”
After the intermission, Youth Empowerment through Arts and Humanities executive director Sarah Bandy took a minute to talk about the organization’s rock camp programs, which were very important to Jessi. She was an alumnus of the first Southern Girls Rock Camp — that’s where she met Anderson, who’d co-founded the camp, and their bandmate Nikki Kvarnes — and returned as a volunteer for many years. The second set kicked off with a group of camp alumnae called Queens of Noise, who performed Jessi’s anthem “Ain’t Afraid” with all the blistering confidence that Jessi brought to the song.
From left: Linwood Regensburg and John McCauley
Dante Schwebel from Texas outfits Spanish Gold and Hacienda had a hell of an act to follow, but he did his best J.J. Cale-esque version of Divine’s “Female Trouble.” Idle Bloom’s Olivia Scibelli rocked out with cool detachment on “Tina Said,” and Deer Tick’s John McCauley absolutely ripped “Screws Get Loose.” A couple of songs traditionally sung by Kvarnes came next — this was not just a celebration of Jessi alone, but the impact of Those Darlins as a band. “Night Jogger,” sung by Richie Kirkpatrick, and “Wild One,” the Darlins’ very first single (sung here by Becca Richardson), were played with that exciting elasticity that marks a seasoned band — or in this case, seasoned players, since this ensemble only had the week before the show to rehearse.
From left: Jerry Pentecost, Larissa Maestro, Kyshona Armstrong
Adam Weiner from the Philadelphia rock group Low Cut Connie came up next for a resolute rendition of “Oh God,” followed by Armstrong and Maestro singing one of the songs Jessi and Regensburg recorded last year. It’s a poignant and defiantly rocking song whose refrain goes, “Keep on looking for the things you never saw.” Hopefully that album will be out soon, but the way the live performance brings together such an array of people with very different talents is beautiful, and a superb metaphor for Jessi’s relationship to the rock scene.
There were a few more early Darlins tunes: Parker Gispert from The Whigs on “Snaggletooth Mama,” Tiffany Minton on a supremely raucous and silly “The Whole Damn Thing,” and Jessi’s brothers Emmett and Oakley Wariner on the superb “Mama’s Heart.” Then, Miller came back to lead the finale, sticking the landing on a gnarly “That Man” by surfing the crowd.
It's never going to be easy to adjust to the deaths of people who make themselves part of the fabric of your community, especially if they're also your bandmates, your friends or your family members. But watching musicians from across the spectrum come together for this show, we got a huge boost to our confidence that we'll be able to handle it when we have to — something else we can thank Jessi for.
See our slideshow for more photos.
In The Spin — the Scene's live review column — staffers and freelance contributors review concerts under a collective byline.
