The Star-Ledger – NJ
Nov 13 2009
Fluent in jazz
Armenian-American teen cultivates a passion for standards
LUCINE ‘LUSI’ YEGHIAZARYAN
Story by RONNI REICH / FOR THE STAR-LEDGER
Photos by STEVE HOCKSTEIN / FOR THE STAR-LEDGER
Huddled around a stove with her three sisters, her father and her
mother, who strummed a guitar by candlelight, Lucine Yeghiazaryan
learned her first songs. `We had electricity for only one hour each
day,’ says her mother, Karine Arshakyan. `In the evening, we had to
keep the kids busy with something, so we would sing.’
Her interests, Lusi says, are painting and otherwise `all music.’
Here, she practices violin in her bedroom.
Lusi, 18, shares a cup of coffee with her `grandma,’ Seda Sarksyan, at
home in Hewitt.
Lucine `Lusi’ Yeghiazaryan, left, learned her first songs from her
mom, Karine Arshakyan. Below, Lusi, 18, shares a cup of coffee with
her `grandma,’ Seda Sarksyan, at home in Hewitt.
In 1991, when the girl nicknamed `Lusi’ was born, Armenia had just
broken from the Soviet Union and the country suffered an economic
crisis. For Lusi and her family, music became not just a way to spend
evenings, but also a way to entertain neighbors.
A local flute teacher noticed their talent and Arshakyan began
entering her daughters in competitions. Sona, 11 and the oldest, was
the artist of the family, and Lusi, 4, and Mary, 3, were both too
young. So 7-year-old Tatev was the first to take the stage.
Lusi watched intently and family photos show her wide-eyed, focused
and mentally recording everything around her. After one community
event, where children were invited to perform, little Lusi stalked
home in tears. She cried to her mother, `Why didn’t you ask me to
sing?’
`I remember being young and wanting to perform so badly,’ says Lusi,
now 18 and a West Milford High School senior living in Hewitt. `It
would always irritate me when we were at concerts ‘ I was like, `Man,
I want to be up onstage right now!’…’
An animated, restless charisma emanates as she recalls her almost
lifelong urge to perform. With a rich, slightly accented voice and
classic movie star elegance, Lusi commands a crowd with the knowing
authority of a veteran. From years of shows performed here and in
Armenia with her sisters to more recent appearances at jazz clubs like
the Blue Note, Lusi already has begun to make her mark across oceans,
language barriers and musical worlds.
Music seems to pour from the teenager with thick, wavy chestnut hair
and large, long-lashed brown eyes. She smiles and works the mic as she
sings with liquid flexibility, the tone clear, direct and round, with
a sparkling vibrato and elements of sweetness, warmth and a little
spice. As she performs `I Should Care,’ at the New Jersey Performing
Arts Center’s Victoria Theater, Lusi’s long history with jazz becomes
evident.
Taking cues from Chet
Lusi heard her first standards streaming from her father’s basement
art studio in Armavir, Armenia. Mels Yeghiazaryan, a woodcarving
artist, was fanatical about jazz, and as Lusi idly painted by his
side, she developed a love for Chet Baker and other legends, from whom
she took her singing cues.
`Chet Baker is the man,’ she says. `He’s so amazing ‘ people don’t see
it, but I’m so in love with him. Not just because he was handsome, but
he was a great musician and a great singer at the same time ‘ with
absolutely no technique, but an amazing unique sound.’
Lucine `Lusi’ Yeghiazaryan, left, learned her first songs from her
mom, Karine Arshakyan. Below, Lusi, 18, shares a cup of coffee with
her `grandma,’ Seda Sarksyan, at home in Hewitt.
She says she learned from his straightforward, laid-back style, and
later became entranced with Brazilian jazz, especially Astrud
Gilberto. Lusi developed a philosophy far different from many singers
her age, who eagerly dress up melodies with flourishes to show off
their vocal prowess.
`I love simplicity,’ Lusi says. `People can make music complicated,
too fast and too much in too many places and too often. That’s not
what music is about. It’s not about how fast your fingers can go up
and down a piano, and I feel like people are forgetting that.’
The refined taste, devotion and natural feeling she has for jazz stood
out when she and her family moved to New Jersey and impressed the
faculty of the NJPAC’s Jazz for Teens study program, which accepted
her as a scholarship student in 2003.
`Lusi’s talent was obvious to me when I first heard her at age 13,’
writes jazz vocalist and teacher Roseanna Vitro in an e-mail. `Lusi is
a true improvisational singer, although she chooses many times to
simply sing the lyrics with an innate maturity and sensuality, well
beyond her years.
`She is very sensitive, and she listens and learns quickly.’
A trio starts out
Three young women, each a head taller than the next, dance around one
another, singing songs from `Jingle Bells’ to close-harmonied
traditional Armenian songs, followed by `Summertime.’
At one point, the smallest, about 7 years old ‘ shoulders and hips
moving with relaxed grace and in perfect rhythm ‘ grasps the
microphone tightly and looks to her left, following her older sisters’
lead.
`I love simplicity. People can make music complicated, too fast and
too much in too many places and too often.’ ‘ LUCINE YEGHIAZARYAN
As the YY sisters ‘ Y for Yeghiazaryan and Y for Yerevan, the capital
of Armenia ‘ Sona, Tatev and Lusi (youngest daughter Mary, now 17,
does not perform) appeared at jazz festivals and cultural events in
their homeland. They also won Armenian national competitions, and Lusi
got a musical education and the opportunity to bond with her sisters.
Tatev, now 21 and studying jazz at William Paterson University,
arranged the music, Lusi learned to read the notes while studying
violin, and they taught the music to Sona. If arguments grew heated at
times ‘ `we’re sisters, so we can call each other whatever we want’ ‘
the collaborative process brought them closer.
`The rehearsals were treacherous because you had to bang out every
note, but it was fun,’ Lusi recalls.
The group’s success continued, and Arshakyan decided her family should
come to America in 2003, so that her daughters could pursue their
talents. They continued the trio after moving to Hewitt that year and
developed a following in the Armenian community.
`We got pretty wide recognition,’ Lusi says.
In a living room where delicate original paintings and intricate,
smooth-lined woodcarvings adorn walls, and photo albums fill shelves,
Lusi sips coffee while having a conversation with Seda Sarksyan, the
woman she calls her grandmother.
Sarksyan is a distant relative who found the family through their
church. She needed support, so they took her in to live with them
because Arshakyan wanted to `pay forward’ the help she had received
from the Armenian community when they first moved to the United
States. She also wanted her children to see, firsthand, the importance
of family.
`You can sacrifice a little bit to help someone,’ she says.
Mom’s guidance
Her mother was instrumental in Lusi’s career, not only being the first
to move and find her footing through a series of survival jobs before
becoming a child psychologist and art teacher, but also by teaching
Lusi her first songs.
Lusi entered her first national competition at age 5 when she didn’t
know how to read, so Arshakyan recorded the words to songs and played
them over and over again, 10 to 15 times in a row. While Lusi was
playing, she would listen to the music and her mother would teach her
to pronounce the words ‘ even then, she loved jazz and wanted to sing
in English.
She won that competition, and as others followed, Arshakyan grew to
realize that her reaction to her daughter’s singing was more than
motherly pride.
`Lusi is very sincere,’ she says. `She sings with her soul and she
doesn’t force anything, and it just flows and I melt away.’
Appreciative of all her mother’s efforts and the life-changing move to
America, Lusi gazes admiringly and affectionately at her as she says,
`In Armenia, girls study their butts off and go to college, and the
year you graduate, you get married, the next year have kids and
that’s it. She saw more for us.’
When Sona, now 24, got married and Tatev left for college, the trio
stopped its formal performances, although they still sing together.
While its focus had been on Armenian music, the YY sisters gave Lusi
her first taste of straddling cultural worlds, which became an
important skill for her after relocating. One year after the move,
Arshakyan persuaded Lusi to resume auditions, even as she was still
learning English.
`You know, you’re so self-conscious, when you don’t know the language
and you want to get a hold of things before you actually take a step
into something,’ Lusi recalls.
She had been subdued and often pensive as a child, and her mother
refers to her as an old soul with a philosophical mindset. At first,
the family’s move made her turn more inward.
Moving to a country in which she didn’t speak the language `made me
less talkative because it forces you to listen and not speak until you
know what you’re saying,’ Lusi says. `I was quiet for a whole year,
just listening.’
Adapting to a new language and culture was difficult and tiring, Lusi
says. `But I’m glad it happened because I feel like I absorbed both
cultures at the same time,’ she says.
Straddling two cultures
Lusi thinks of herself as both Armenian and `Americanized’ in equal
measure, more so than her older sisters, who identify more as the
former and her younger sister who seems more the latter. Lusi takes
great pride in Armenian musical and artistic life.
`It’s such an old culture that you can hear a religious tune from the
second century or modern classical composers,’ she says. `We’ve got
this huge range of music, and it makes you very diverse.
`We’ve been around a long time, and we’ve absorbed so many centuries
of war and peace and art and love ‘ all of that is in the music.’
With her successes as part of a trio and as a solo singer, Lusi
learned many lessons ‘ including self-confidence. `I don’t think I
realized I was a good singer until two or three years ago,’ she says.
`I’m really picky with the way I sing.’
About halfway through her studies at NJPAC, she announced to Don
Braden, who heads the program, that she needed to quit. She felt
terrible about backing out, but he advised her to take her time.
`I want to know if this is what I want to do, and then we can go on,’
Lusi says she told him.
`I was like, `I’m not a singer, what am I doing?’…’ she remembers. `I
wasn’t satisfied. I hate comparing myself to the mediocrity because
you don’t get anywhere, and I was comparing myself to the greats.’
Looking into the future, she couldn’t imagine that she would make a
mark in the line of jazz singers. She stopped singing for a year. As
time passed, though, she could no longer resist.
`I just want to count off a band now!’ she told herself, imagining
leading a jazz song again.
She resumed studying and performing at NJPAC, appearing at the Blue
Note, Trumpets and Cecil’s, and recording a CD, produced with help
from Vitro and a guest appearance by Braden. She’s the only student of
theirs to receive such treatment.
Lusi is giving serious thought to her future, weighing the option of
pursuing jazz professionally and trying her hand at other careers.
`I believe in Lusi’s talent, and I feel that with the right breaks,
hard work and a good attitude that she could become the next Astrud
Gilberto/Peggy Lee, but, of course, in contemporary terms,’ Vitro
writes. `Perhaps a jazzy Lady Gaga? The sky is the limit for Lusi and
all she needs to do is keep singing.’
Lusi, who speaks Armenian, Russian, English and some French, is
considering foreign relations study as well.
`I want to feel fulfilled by the time I’m 60, knowing that I didn’t
just have a job that proved my talent, but also a job that proved my
intelligence,’ she says.
But jazz keeps its hold.
`Even when songs don’t have lyrics, I love how something is
transmitted to the audience through just a sound you make,’ she says.
`Music puts people into a state that nothing else does ‘ and I love
that.’
Hobbies: Sports? `Absolutely not!’ Yeghiazaryan paints, but otherwise,
she’s `all music.’
Travel dream: Visiting Chinese villages and working in rice fields.
`When you’re just a tourist, you don’t get to see how people live.’
Favorite school subject: History
Style icon: Audrey Hepburn, whose photo decorates her room
Best criticism: Reviewing her performance in her high school
production of `The Boyfriend,’ a musical theater competition judge
said she was `too Edith Piaf.’
si_yeghiazaryan.html
http://blog.nj.com/iamnj/2009/11/lucine_lu