"The music is sweeter now that Jennifer is not John"

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=51 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF" bgproperties="fixed" background="29002330dvldtc.jpg"> <div> <B>"The music is sweeter now that Jennifer is not John"</B></div> <div> <I><B><IMG SRC="15c20770.jpg" border=0 width="800" height="119" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></I></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=269 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF" bgproperties="fixed" background="8bd00c00dvldtc.jpg"> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="611" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 38 WIDTH="605"><div> <B>Gieske, Tony </B>- <I><B><U>Hollywood Reporter </U></B></I><I><B> </B></I>(<B>October 2, 2006</B>) - "<I><B>The music is sweeter now that Jennifer is not Joh</B></I><I><B>n; </B></I><I><B>Surgery brings `world of wonder'</B></I><I><B>"</B></I></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 1536 WIDTH="605"><bR> <div>   Bassist Jennifer Leitham does some singing on her new album, “The Real Me.”  “Why did the one side want to dominate?” she sings.  </div> <div> “Why did the other hide, in plain sight?”</div> <div>   If you didn't know about Jennifer, Mel Torme's bass player for 10 years and a jazz bandstand adornment for years around town, you'd think you were hearing a love song of some sort.  But Jennifer's lyric for her song, titled “Split Brain,” gets deeper:</div> <div> <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT> <I>“I knew it wasn't a choice, I didn't hesitate/ Just to make it all one, the deed was no fun, to make it all right.”</I></div> <div> <I>  </I>The deed she's singing about is a terrifying kind of thing, a radical procedure called sexual reassignment surgery that she underwent five years ago.  As she explained its aftermath, the operation has enabled her to stop being John Leitham and quit passing as a man.  But this is not a sex chang.</div> <div>   “Internally, mentally and certainly in some physical ways, I've always been female,” she says.  “I've always known that.  It's something you're born with.</div> <div>   “But when people say, `When you used to be a man' or something like that … to me that's a fallacy.  I never was a man.  I portrayed myself as one because I had to, and in my profession it was absolutely essential in the time that I came up.”</div> <div>   Jennifer was using the name John and portraying as male when she came into jazz prominence with Torme, who once said: “The beauty of John's playing is that, in addition to being one of the finest practitioners of solo bass, he is also, to use George Shearing's apt phrase, `A Real Ding-Dong Daddy' - translation: a pulsing driving bassist whose rock-solid time and full ringing tones kick instrumentalists, big bands and singers alike right up the backside.”</div> <div>   As John, she already had kicked up the backsides of the hot young players in Woody Herman's band for six months in 1981, when she first tasted big-time jazz and life on the road.  In '83, she moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, playing with the late Stan Kenton star Bob Cooper and virtuoso trombonist Bill Watrous before joining Torme in '87.</div> <div>   She kept on kicking for many more years with the big band of Doc Severinsen, the former “Tonight Show” bandleader.  She has appeared or recorded with Shearing, Gerry Mulligan, Peggy Lee, Joe Pass, Cleo Laine, Louis Bellson, Pete Rugulo, Bill Watrous, Benny Carter and Bob Cooper.  She has recorded six well-received albums of her own, among them “Leitham Up,” “The Southpaw”,  and “Lefty Leaps In,” before she got to “The Real Me,” the record with “Split Brain” on it.</div> <div>   “I doubt seriously whether a woman would have been given the opportunities that I've been given,” Leitham says.  She portrayed as a he to make the most of those opportunities, but those days couldn't last.</div> <div>   “ you get to a point where it's affecting your function in society,” Leitham says.  “You're sinking into clinical depression, you're not able to do as well as you can in personal relationships and in your approach to your art or your work.  It's time to do something about it.”</div> <div> <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT> <I>”I knew it wasn't a choice, I didn't hesitate/Just to make it all one, the deed was no fun, to make it all right.”</I></div> <div>   She underwent the surgery and the ensuing complications that required a series of corrective procedures during a yearlong ordeal of pain.  These she scheduled so as not to interfere with a busy touring schedule.</div> <div>   “Sure, it's terrifying, but it's not like you choose to do it.  It chooses you,” she laughs lightly.  “It's like a crossroads.  You can take the road to misery or the road to a chance for happiness.  I've done that; it's behind me.  Meaning, you know, my family, my marriage.”</div> <div> <I>  “Now that the nexus is behind me/ I take no joy in losses made.”</I></div> <div>   That's a very sad song, a listener says.</div> <div>   “It is,” Leitham responds.  “It's sad and it's happy too.  It encompasses a lot; it's a very bittersweet thing.</div> <div>   “Some people have the advantage of having family support them and understanding amongst people who are close, and in some circles, I've had that.  But my parents, anyway, have not been supportive.  It's really hard to let go of relationships - like all of my close relationships have changed completely.”</div> <div>   <I>“They're gone, but now it's a whole new world of wonder.”</I></div> <div> <I>  </I>Meaning?</div> <div>   “Comparing a female perspective to a male perspective, I do see big differences in how individuals are treated,” Leitham says.  “Some of it's amazing, some of it's wonderful.  Women treat each other differently than a woman would treat a guy.  I love the way women smile at each other, I just love that.</div> <div>   “Men rarely ever make eye contact with another man.  When I was trying to present myself that way, I didn't even notice it,” Leitham says.</div> <div>   And now, “the guys won't listen to me in a conversation like they used to,” she says.  “If I'm making a point at a rehearsal, trying to bring up a musical point, I get shouted down more often than not.  It's as though my opinion isn't worth what it was before.</div> <div>   “It's hard for people that knew me from before,” she adds, but there have been some exceptions, including Jack Sheldon, the trumpet man and comedian with whom she has worked for more than 20 years.</div> <div>   “Right before my transition, I was starting to let my hair grow pretty long, and I showed up for a gig once with Jack, she says.  “He didn't know what was going on with me but he was a little bit intuitive, and he said over the microphone: `I thought I was calling John Leitham for a gig, but Rita Hayworth showed up'.”</div> <div>   She laughs.  “I dig Jack, I really do.  I think he's empathetic about it, and he calls me to play with him, and that means everything to me.”</div> <div> <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" > </FONT> <I>“You know the mind is the key, the happiness free, there's no one to blame.”</I></div> <bR> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=160 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF" bgproperties="fixed" background="29100a00dvldtc.jpg"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="926" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER COLSPAN=2 HEIGHT= 52 ><NOBR><div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="38" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="39">  <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="HOME"><U><IMG SRC="25c26260.jpg" border=0 width="38" height="38" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" 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