Jeni Fleming Trio comes together for 10-year reunion on Friday, March 31st at 7:30pm

A Bozeman favorite will reunite for a limited tour of our share of the Northern Rockies beginning at the end of the month! The Jeni Fleming Trio brings a one-night-only reunion performance by members Jeni Fleming, Jake Fleming, and Chad Langford to the Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture on Friday, March 31st at 7:30pm. The evening will begin at 6:30pm with a no-host cocktail hour and hors d’oeuvres provided by The Emerson Grill. Tickets to this awesome night of friends and music are $16.50 and available in store at Cactus Records and www.cactusrecords.net/tickets. Additional reunion shows are set for March 25th in Billings, April 1st in Missoula, and April 6th and 7th in Rapid City, South Dakota. Find Jeni on Facebook for further information on these performances.
“We knew we would be together again. Someday, Sometime. Ugh,” Jeni says, the eye roll happening as the words come out of her mouth. Someday, Sometime is the Jeni Fleming Trio’s fourth album, followed by their fifth, We’ll Be Together Again.
The Jeni Fleming Trio is one of the rare Montana bands that enjoyed some national recognition for the 7 short years they were together (2000–2007). Though their educations and backgrounds are as diverse as the material they became known for (which swung wildly from The Beatles to The Cure to Duke Ellington to Lutheran hymns), their appeal transcended generation and genre.
Due in part to their signature “sound,” which simultaneously held elements of chamber music—very intimate, intricate and interwoven—and a casualness born from hours spent on the bandstand (and in a church, and on the back porch, and in garage bands), the Jeni Fleming Trio quickly found themselves playing for, and every now and then headlining jazz festivals across the Northwest and into Canada. Even if they may have felt it a bit of a misnomer to categorize themselves (by association with largely jazz venues) as jazz, the dynamic range these three possessed in sum would impress a musician from any genre. But due to their instrumentation (upright bass, acoustic guitar, voice) the Trio was just as often described as a singer/songwritery-folksy-americana-ish-like group. None of which is true, but none of which is false either.
Jeni says, “A good song, is a good song, is a good song. When we would consider material for a record, nothing was safe, nothing was sacred. Our goal has always been to serve the song first, so if that meant delivering a folk tune with extended harmony and a typical bossa bassline, so be it.” This explains why “Stairway to Heaven” and “Danny Boy” have appeared next to each other on more than one set list. The Trio would be the first to admit that making the music so difficult to classify was probably at once their biggest obstruction to wider success, and their greatest appeal. Jeni says, “If none of us were satisfied performing only one genre, why would the audience be satisfied?”
The Jeni Fleming Trio toured and recorded from 2000–2007. Their 5-album discography culminated with the fully orchestrated album We’ll Be Together Again, featuring Montana’s premier string players, The String Orchestra of the Rockies. Featured on the pilot episode of 11th & Grant with Eric Funk (MT PBS), the Trio’s Emmy Award-winning episode set the bar for excellence for this highly decorated performance series. Together, the members of the Trio have shared the stage with and/or opened for some of today’s legends—musical and otherwise—including Dave Brubeck, Salman Rushdie, Nancy King, Patrick Leonard, Hank Jones, Maya Angelou, Yann Martel, The Ahn Trio, Cyrus Chestnut, and Stefon Harris, to name a few.
In support of their albums, the Trio appeared with symphony orchestras across the country (The Black Hills Symphony, The Glacier Symphony, The String Orchestra of the Rockies, The Port Angeles High School Concert Orchestra), and in various other combos at many major jazz festivals including the UNC Greeley Jazz Festival, The Yellowstone Jazz Festival, The Powell Jazz Festival, The Juan de Fuca Festival, Jazz Montana (Bozeman), Big Timber Jazz Society Concert Series, Phillipsburg Jazz Festival, Jazz at the Depot (Billings), Integrity Jazz Festival (Minot, ND), Jazz in the Canyon (Twin Bridges, ID), and Jazz Fest International (Victoria, BC).
Inevitably in life, life happens. Chad relocated to Europe in 2007, settling first in the Netherlands and eventually in the north of England. His recent music has been featured in festivals across Europe, from Holland to Poland, Germany to Serbia. He completed a PhD in composition at Durham University (UK) in 2015, and is currently serving there as Lecturer in Composition.
Following Chad’s departure, Jake and Jeni rounded out the band and released two more albums—December (2008) and Come to Life (2010). As is the way sometimes, Jake and Jeni divorced in 2012, and before you start imagining awkward onstage dynamics of Christopher Guest-like proportions, consider that they threw a joint divorce party where 300 of their closest friends gathered to celebrate what they both still maintain was a successful marriage.
Jake remarried and has a 3-year-old daughter named Betty. Ever the utilitarian player, Jake’s been doing what Jake does—a bit of everything. He maintains a private teaching studio, a recording and rehearsal space, practices a good dozen instruments throughout a week, plays in a handful of bands, studies eastern philosophy through music, practices and teaches yoga at his wife Crystal’s studio, makes commercial music, makes music for yoga and as meditation, and generally just enjoys a clarity of mind. And in case that isn’t enough, he’s currently working on a few albums. In short, he’’ been infusing his various interests with music—or maybe his music is being infused with his various interests. Whatever’s happening, there’s some kind of oneness going on.
Jeni continues performing in several bands and teaching private voice and piano. However, following a heart attack in May, all focus shifted to maintaining her health and de-stressing her life, much of which meant letting go of some performing. She describes her current performing schedule as “highly selective,” but when the opportunity to reunite with Jake and Chad arose, there was nothing to consider. Jeni says, “These guys are two of the most important musical influences in my life, and now, with all this water under the bridge, we have a chance to do the thing we’re good at together—minus the difficulties that say, a marriage can bring, or a 20-something ego might present, or even just the pressure of surviving a hand-to-mouth existence. Also, it isn’t lost on me how lucky I am to have a chance to breathe new life into this music post-heart attack. The timing could not have been designed any better.”
A decade later. A decade wiser. A decade of water under the bridge.
Perhaps you remember the Trio’s annual album release concerts, falling on the first Friday of December. Many came to associate the start of the Holiday season this way, and as a bonus, get most of their gift shopping done at the CD table! These were more than just concerts—they were community events that were thoughtful and beautiful, and at the end of it you felt as if you knew Jake and Chad and Jeni so well you could just call them up and invite yourself to dinner and it wouldn’t seem at all weird that a complete stranger had somehow acquired their phone number. It was as if in the details, they had ensured that even if you couldn’t recall which songs they played, and you could easily remember how the evening made you feel. And according to Jake, Chad and Jeni, that is the point.
Jake says, “Music is a temporal medium; the moment the art is made it disappears into the air. Its impermanence is part and parcel of its power. The Trio’s strength was in creating an emotional imprint, which always outlast the music. It’s why we’re able to still name the slow song we danced to with that really cute girl in 7th grade. One thing the Trio agreed on was that the point of music was never ‘how high or fast or loud,’ it was always ‘how accurately one could elicit a specific emotional response.’ There was something about the three of us that made it easier to do that.”
Jeni adds, “If I had a dollar for every time someone said ‘I hated that song until I heard your version,’ I’d have about $30 bucks, which is like…dinner out. Alone, and without glass of wine. But still, it’s dinner out.”
The shows on this reunion tour will offer up one of those concerts that if you miss it, regret will set in, especially because there’s no possibly of “I’ll catch the next one.” The Jeni Fleming Acoustic Trio will perform five concerts only, with shows in Billings, Bozeman, Missoula, and two in Rapid City, SD. Many of these venues are intimate, so seating is extremely limited and tickets will go fast.
It’s so nice to hear band mates say something nice about each other, isn’t it? Nothing like 10 years of hindsight to reveal just how good you had it. To that comment Jeni says, “they say you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone, but we knew all along.”
For tour dates, tickets, and further information, visit Jeni’s Facebook page or www.jenifleming.com. •