Interview with Paisley Beebe, Second Life's Jazz Diva

By Nazz Lane

One of Second Life's greatest pleasures is in attending a live concert. SL has become the home for a number of talented singers and musicians and their presence and impact on our Second Lives continues to grow.
I recently had the chance to catch up with SL's premier Jazz Diva, Paisley Beebe.
In between her many appearances in SL, her weekly "Tonight Live With Paisley Beebe" show and a real life in which she hosts weekly live radio shows plus professional appearances, we met at her office on Sailor Cove.

NL: Can you tell me what brought you into SL?
PB: A magazine article here in Australia, I'm not a gamer but I am a gadget and computer addict. I use my computer and the web to market my music and have marketed it very successfully. I have a RL web site, www.leoniesmith.com and a My Space site. If you were to Google "Leonie Smith", Nazz, you would see thousands of entries.
NL: Looking back to your first experiences in SL, how has being in SL affected you?
PB: Oh, I am definitely addicted, LOL. From the start, it horrified my husband terribly, the amount of time I spent on it just building a house and buying land. I totally got into it. I tried buying small blocks and building houses on them and selling them, but it was soooo much hard work and not much return. I did all of that for about two months before I even sang in SL. Also my voice, it's changed since I've been here on SL, singing as often as I have done has helped me grow my repertoire and there is a constant challenge to improve. SL has helped me by putting myself on the spot several times a week. I'm hoping that eventually I might tour overseas through connections made through SL. I'm hoping to be asked to come to next year's SLCC, if it is still going to happen.
NL: So you started to perform in March of this year then?
PB: It was about then, yes. I actually thought that I would never make money here as a singer, so I thought I'd better get another skill, building and designing. But that never happened.
NL: Who in SL would you most like to meet that you haven't met and why?
PB: OOOH, good question. Probably Phillip Linden. He's the hardest to get to meet and, probably, so I could see what he is really like and maybe suggest a makeover for that look that he has :). I wanted to get him on our Christmas show dressed as Santa giving out presents. But someone said that he probably wouldn't do it because his look is his brand and he wouldn't compromise it.
NL: What was your most memorable moment in SL?
PB: OOOH, there have been sooo many. One of my first was doing my first public gig where I was properly booked and in getting 14K in tips, with soooo many people there, it was incredible. I felt like Norah Jones winning the Grammy. It was overwhelming to have so much attention. I thought that's how it was always going to be :). In Australia, the jazz scene is very small and I often just get bookings as background music. So, to have people actually listen to us and pay attention was amazing on that level first up.
NL: Do you have a favorite venue in SL?
PB: My favorite places to play in SL are the Sunset Jazz Club and Sailors Cove. I would play those places for free if I could afford it and will when I can, it's just sheer enjoyment to play both venues. The Lift is my other regular venue, it is just starting. Lots of jazz clubs start up and don't last. You have to have a dedicated group to sustain them and that takes a long time to get such loyalty. Its quite complex, you do have to have a suitable venue somewhere where people feel good. If they can't move in there due to lag, they don't mind that. The Sunset has places you can hide if you want, lots of nice little spots to sit if you don't want to be bothered. It has atmosphere in spades.
NL: In an article that appeared in Jazz Corner, you'd mentioned about SL: "Finally, we are able to play live and be appreciated by people the world over who actually listen and enjoy the music", does that sentiment still hold true?
PB: Absolutely! One of my main aims at the moment is to get to more Europeans. Due to the time zone differences, it's very hard without me singing at 4 AM. So I have put all my gigs back to 5 PM and 4 PM SLT in order to get the Europeans still up at 11 PM their local time. But I feel that there is a huge jazz fan base out there on SL who don't even know about jazz or live music in SL due to most music being played in U.S. time. It's changing with a few good European musicians but it's still very small.
NL: You were also quoted as saying in that same article: "perhaps some real life success may come of this but I'm not counting on it", is that still how you feel? Or has it led to RL successes?
PB: Not yet, but my MP3 sales have tripled and CD sales, but that's not much, maybe $80 USD a quarter, still miniscule. But, you know, that's good for an Aussie jazz artist. There are only one or two artists here in Australia who actually make any money out of sales. Most make their money out of concerts and corporate shows. The rest do CDs as a labor of love.
NL: Your first album is titled "Sweet Jazz." What inspired the name?
PB: My singer coach, Kerrie Biddel, said I had a sweet sounding voice and, as it was my first album, I wanted people to know that it was jazz so I had to put "jazz" in the title somehow :), and jazz is ....sweet....
NL: Your second album is called "Never the Less", what was the inspiration for that?
PB: The second album name is the punch line to a joke that my guitarist accompanist told me on one of our tours. He is nearly 73 and loves telling jokes and still loves to play. By the way, my accompanist, George Golla, is Australia's answer to Les Paul, a bonafide legend here in Australia and has played with Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie and many, many legends. He is the guitarist's guitarist! He and I are quite close, we tour every year to Tasmania. He is incredible, really, a great mentor to me. But we don't get to play much together; hopefully, that will change now… Well, the one upside of there not being much work in Australia is that I do get to play with the best musicians in Australia and that's not hype, it's the truth, and I bring them in here. Ray Aldridge, one of my regular accompanists is, without a doubt, the best jazz accompanist in Australia. He is also legendary here. But they just don't get the work they deserve so they like to play and the audiences here in SL are often, more than not, bigger than our RL audiences and they buy the CDs!!! …. and listen … and we love to play music ... bottom line.
NL: What are your plans for future releases?
PB: I'm about to launch a "Live in SL" album, they are live recordings from SL. This will be available on digital download only. I'm working with another SL musician on it. I just have to get through the paper work…*sigh*...I hate paperwork.
NL: What do you see as the future for your music and performances and the music scene in SL?
PB: Personally, it would be fun to jam with another jazz artist. Well, you see that's what is great about jazz, we can all play so many of the same songs and we are used to listening to each other and improvising. As long as each player knows their own stuff, it can be the best fun in the world. If it were easy to jam in SL already, I would do it. But I haven't seriously looked at the technicalities of doing it in SL 'cause it's not easy and doesn't allow for improvising easily. You can do it like VLB but it takes a lot of rehearsal which is not my idea of jazz…
The other thing is that the Lindens have no interest in supporting live music and why should they? They just have to keep this all afloat. They like the live music scene so don't get me wrong, but it's not their job to promote us. It's like fashion or anything else here. It's our job to figure it out. That's up to us as a music community to build it…and it's really hard getting the live music scene here cohesive…there are so many different opinions.