MUSICIAN

Music Now
In December 2006, Jay released his album, WHAT ABOUT NOW. The album contains 10 original songs, a mixture of pop, alt.country and rock styles. Recorded in 2006, it features some of the best studio musicians in Los Angeles. Jay is proud to have his brother Alan and sister Michelle also playing and singing on the album. The songs tell stories of love, time and memory, in all their quirky, bittersweet, wonder. Full lyrics are available here. WHAT ABOUT NOW can be downloaded at iTunes, Rhapsody and Napster. The CD can be bought directly from CD Baby.

Jay is currently working on a staged production of EVEL KNIEVEL THE ROCK OPERA written by Los Angeles composer, Jef Bek (no, not the guitarist) about the life of 1970's daredevil, Evel Knievel. Jay is a co-composer on the show, having written a few songs and segues, working with Jef since 2001 on the music, lyrics and story. EKTRO will open on April 13, 2007 at Bootleg Theatre in Los Angeles where Jay will play guitar and share Musical Director duties with Jef Bek.

Music Further Back
In the late 90's through the 00's, Jay played performed many recording session dates and live shows for Los Angeles singer songwriters and bands. He joined the country comedy group, Cole Slaw and the Baked Bean band, performing in local clubs and enjoyed a long run at the El Portal Theatre to sold-out houses in 2003. The band changed it's name to Ten Horse Johnson and went on to create the theme song for Playboy's radio show, Night Calls on XM Radio. In 2005, Jay toured with Ten Horse in Nashville and Memphis. Ten Horse Johnson music is available on iTunes.

In the mid-90's Jay formed the adult contemporary jazz group, "Dover Beach" with his sister-vocalist, Michelle and released their debut album FAMILY on the Felisity Records label. Jay's song, "A Boy in Love", landed on adult contemporary radio charts and garnered airplay on adult contemporary radio stations in the U.S., Germany, England and Brazil. FAMILY is now avaliable for download from iTunes and Rhapsody.

In the mid to late 80's, Jay made his living as a professional musician playing in a touring Top-40 band in Chicago, Illinois. While attending Western Illinois University, he joined the Jazz Studio Orchestra as featured guitarist and toured Germany.

As a composer, Jay has penned music for national commercials for Bally's, Jack in the Box and Mervyns. In 2000, Jay brought his musical expertise to the theatre, peforming in the award-winning play productions of THE SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH OF SAM SHEPHERD by Zoo District, and GRIMM II an adaption of Grimm's Tales by The Sacred Fools Theatre.

Music Way Back
Jay first picked up a guitar at 13. It belonged to his older sister, had painted scenes of cowboys around a campfire and strings that burned deep valleys into his fingertips. He picked up an old Mel Bay Guitar book and learned his chords and frets and felt graduated when he finally conquered the F chord. Moving on, his father bought him his first electric guitar and small amp from a local discount store. Jay tried to get the amp louder by connecting it to large stereo speaker which promptly blew it up. The guitar faired better and he practiced on his own througout his teens, playing along to records by Bob Dylan and The Beatles. Jay's early music and band experiences were soundly rooted in classic rock from the 70's - Rush, Queen, Kiss, Bad Company, BTO, Steve Miller, so forth. He played often and loud and learned to love the power of a G chord played on a Gibson through a Marshall Plexi half stack.

After seeing his first jazz combo at a local bar, Jay began studying jazz guitar at a local music store and incorporated the styles of Freddie Green, Joe Pass, and Wes Montgomery into his playing. Though he always noodeled the blues (Elvin Bishop being his first influence), he vowed not to play blues live until he really understood the blues. Just because you can noodle around with Eric Clapton on "From the Cradle" don't mean you can play the blues. It wasn't until late 1989 that he actually felt comfortable playing a blues tune live. Recently, Jay's turned his attention to country, particularly alt.country bands like BR-549, Wilco and The Derailers.

Jay prefers accompanying vocalists. Doesn't like mindless soloing over Changes. Thinks the difference between a good musician and a great musician is listening. Believes tone is in the fingers. Would rather play a great rhythm part than solo. Thinks space is underused and underappreciated. Prefers the clean tube sound of a Fender amp. Loves Fender Telecasters and Gretsch Nashville 6120s and Ovations. Not adverse to a Gibson Les Paul or Marshall crunch. Will play any Standard from the American Songbook (Gershwin, Arlen, Porter, Mercer) at any time for anyone. Still loves to play "Smoke on the Water."

PLAYWRIGHT

Jay began writing plays in earnest in 1995. He has studied playwriting with award-winning playwright and teacher, Leon Martell, Joe Salazar at McCadden Place Theatre and Trey Nichols of Moving Arts, all in Los Angeles. His first play, THE PHILOSOPHY OF FISH, was produced, selected among 500 plays by the World Premiere Theatre in Arcata, California in 1999. His short plays, IF I HAD YOU and ALL IS BRIGHT were produced by the McCadden Place Theatre in 2000. His one act, REASON TO JUMP was chosen by the Company of Angels Theatre in Los Angeles for the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights 2001 New Play Festival. Another full length play CODY AND THE JACK RIPPER was a finalist for the Christopher Polk Playwriting Award from the Abingdon Theater in New York City, which included the play in it's 2002 Reading Series. His most recent full-length, LIVING IN A GREAT BIG WAY was a Top-5 Finalist for 2007 Trustus Theatre Playwrighting Contest, Trustus Theatre, Columbia South Carolina.

Jay's other plays have recieved numerous readings and presentations in Los Angeles since 2003. He is currently working on a musical about airline stewardesses from the 1960's and, of course, several short plays.

All of Jay's plays can be found here

BASELINE

Jay was born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, just about two decades before MTV transformed most popular music into cans of Pepsi and Dr. Pepper. He is the 7th child of 9, which apparently resonates among fans of a popular sci-fi TV serial, which Jay has never watched. He is the 4th of 5 boys, in between girl number 3 and 4. He grew up in a small, mostly square, 3 bedroom house (about 900 SqFt, $16,000 in 1958) on the westside of Cleveland which was directly under the landing approach pattern to runway 24L of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. There, all nine Dover kids (Carol, Gene, Janice, Lynne, Gary, Tom, Jay, Alan, Michelle), mom and dad and several dozen cats lived, wrestled, scrounged, fought, kidded incessantly, grew up, and eventually moved out. The house had one small bathroom until dad hooked a small hose to the utility sink in the basement to create a "half bath". The house was kid-central for the street, it's backyard dominated by a huge oak tree which prevented any grass from growing, the garage overrun with dirt, scrap wood and centipedes, and a dank labyrinth of a basement whose dark shadows haunted Jay's young nights and which his mother used to scare the crap out of him. One day when Jay was 5, his mother walked him only half of the way to kindergarten school. Confused by this and not wanting much to go to school that morning, he waited around the corner in some bushes until she disappeared down the street as she walked back home, then returned to the corner of that street and for three hours played with toy cars in the dirt. When the other kids started returning from school, he blended in and went home, his mother never wise to the matter. He's been pretty much on his own ever since.

Education
Jay's early education followed the typical tract of kids from working class parents on the west side of Cleveland. Catholic grade school (St. Patricks West Park), where failure to learn one's multiplication tables meant you could very well end up in Hell and where Jay was paddled on more than one occassion by Sister Incarnata for not wearing the offical school tie. Then onto public high school (Clara E. Westropp), where Jay got his first taste of show biz by playing the Beatles "Hey Jude" with his best friend, Gary Werner, on drums in Mr. Genius' (real name) Social Studies class. Jay broke the high E string during the "na, na, na" part and Gary forgot his kick pedal, but the love of the guitar was sown that day. Jay's father picked up the family and moved it to the west side suburb of North Olmsted, and Jay finished out his high school education at North Olmsted High School, graduating early and not attending his graduation ceremony.

Again following the typical tract of working class average Joe, Jay attend a couple of semesters of community college (Cuyahoga Community College - TRI-C) where he was cast in his first play, DARK OF THE MOON, as Barbara Allen's younger brother, "Floyd", playing guitar and falling in love with the theatre. It was the only play Jay's mother saw him perform in. He left after two semesters with rather unspectacular grades. Moving onto big time college at Cleveland State University (big for Cleveland), Jay failed miserably in all his classes, the pinnacle being Western Philosophy at 8:00am where he mostly slept. He was placed on academic probation with a GPA of 1.2.

Flash forward 5 years - Jay decided to return to college and managed to get accepted to Western Illinois University in the summer of 1986 under the university's "Open Enrollment Program" for lousy students. Ace-ing both classes that summer, Jay attended WIU full-time in January 1987, arriving by train from Chicago on a freezing January night and walking 2 miles with all his belongings to the dorm. At WIU, Jay nurtured his love of theatre, performing in numerous plays ("Dysart" in EQUUS; "Micky" in HURLYBURLY; "Donny" in AMERICAN BUFFALO, several bit parts in other shows, a season of WIU Summer Stock, earning small grants and scholarships for theatre tech, lighting and acting). Also at WIU, Jay joined the music department's Jazz Studio Orchestra as guitarist, touring Illinois and eventually touring Germany in 1988, as well has playing with local jazz and blues groups at clubs, nearly every day, it seemed at one point. Finally, Jay was an editorialist for the campus newspaper, earning a first-place award for best editorial in 1988 which he was not allowed to keep. In 1989, Jay graduated with a B.A in English and Theatre, Summa Cum Laude and a 3.86 GPA. The degree has generated spectacularly low sums of money ever since.

He was accepted for Graduate Programs at three universities and finally decided on Washington State University in 1989. Graduate school was much different (actual study work) than undergraduate (mostly drinking fun) and Jay's second thoughts surfaced when one assignment required him to write 50 pages on an obscure and quite dead English poet whose body of work totaled a few months work in the year 1387. Fearing he'd acquire the pasty faces and dark ringed eyes of his professors from such trivial pursuit, he left with a year to go with no regrets.

Jobs
Jay's first job as at Angelo's Pizza in Cleveland, Ohio at 13 years old (surely in violation of Ohio child labor laws but I appreciate the Dickensian spirit). He was paid $1 per hour to open cans of pizza sauce, mushrooms, slice pepperoni, tomatoes and unfortunately, cut piles and piles of raw onions, which, to this day, he has an allergic reaction to onions and cannot eat, smell or be around them without flushing red something awful. Jay is uncertain that Angelo's Pizza is still open for business and was not consumed by a global corporate pizza making entity - like pretty much everything else. In suburban North Olmsted, Jay worked at Mr. Donut, cleaning the huge mixer bowls, stacking 50lb bags of flour and sugar and wolfing down ten hot glazed donuts when the baker wasn't looking. Unfortunately, Mr. Donut was swallowed up by a global corporate donut making entity and no longer makes donuts on premises. They're shipped in from a factory on the east side.

Jay's other jobs included janitorial work at the Great Nothern Mall (now swallowed up by the Westfield conglomerate), clerking a video rental store, stocking suits and shirts at a suit store, washing cars at a car wash for 3 days, delivering pizzas for 9 days, installing cable TV service (mostly in the snow) eventually getting fired because he couldn't get his ass out of bed on to work on time for months. Contracting as yet another cable TV installer on the east side, he was rescued by an offer of paid gig as guitarist at a Florida resort (Amelia Island) for 9 months, playing 6 nights per week. After the stint concluded, Jay vowed never to play "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang ever again.

Returning to Cleveland, Jay took a job as a mail-room clerk for a downtown corporate law firm (Baker Hostetler) where the requirement to get attorney's their lunches birthed his current independent and somewhat progressive politcal and social views. In 1985, he moved to Chicago for a girl (who dumped him shortly thereafter) but managed to recover enough to join a full-time, working Top 40 band called Ali Baba, singing, playing guitar, staying out way too late. Jay stayed with the band for about one year before leaving for college. As a result, he's vowed never to play "Mustang Sally", "Twist and Shout" and most any pop song from the 80's ever again.

After college and passed-up graduate school, Jay moved to Los Angeles just in time for the Rodney King beating, riots and earthquakes. He supported himself working various McJobs, working on computers mostly, for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, some forgotten insurance company, a Century City advertising agency (Cohen/Johnson - now defunct), before eventually landing a gig as Assistant Editor for the non-profit, Center for Media Literacy. Wanting more money that a non-profit could afford, he worked briefly for an Internet start-up (ultimately rejecting the constant staring at HTML code) and leaving the internet revolution behind with no regrets. Without a job or prospects, Jay somehow answered a job posting for a graphic art layout position for a law firm, Liebert Cassidy Whitmore. While there it was soon discovered by the powers that be, that Jay knew how to "work the computers." He was promoted continuously (beyond his own amazement at times) and now occupies the position of IT Director, in charge of all things techinical. He's been there ever since.

FAMILY

Dad
Jay's father, Richard, was middle class up and down, working all his life for one airline or another, mostly as an air cargo sales manager for Lufthansa Airlines. He had an impressive beer belly which created a sillouhette of a Volkswagen Bug when he was laying down. Whether this was a sign of loyalty or just part of the job to his Deustchland employer is subject to debate. He loved Sears tools, drove only Chrysler or Chevrolets, two-pack-a-day smoker, drank only beer every weeknight but never at home and never on the weekends. He loved watching Cleveland Browns games with the sound turned down on the TV and the radio tuned to the local Browns announcer, Gib Shanley. After the first bungled play of the Browns (usually in the opening minutes of the first quarter) he would declare the game over, but continue to watch and endure the bumbling uncertainty. He preferred no nuts in his ice cream, stopped everything to watch the news on TV, bought Jay his first guitar when he was 14, came home happy drunk and mad drunk equally most nights of the week, developed emphesema and heart disease from the smoking and drinking and bacon and eggs. He died quietly in September 2000, a few days after settling into a local nursing home, shortly after finishing a bowl of his favorite cereal and reading the newspaper. His greatest accomplishment was knowing his sons were all college graduates.

Mom
Jay's mother, Josephine, was middle class by proxy and gifted with a quite durable womb. Starting in 1946 and ending in 1964, she pushed out nine babies without the aid of modern pain-relieving drugs or the notion that the process could be a magical experience. She had been there, done that, and this world-view was passed along to her off-spring. Example: at 7, Jay tripped over a heat duct in the living room, cracked his head on an I-beam in the wall, eventually requiring a dozen stitches. She just put an ice cube on it, then went back to watching TV, before finally agreeing that a hospital visit was necessary. She loved to crochet, was an accomplished seamstress and loved to bake pies, cakes and cookies - her poppyseed rolls are legendary. She rode motorcycles. She owned an immaculate 1964 Ford Mustang, blue with leather seats. But one morning she backed it out of driveway into the neighbor's fence across the street and it was sold shortly thereafter. She told ghost stories, had a macabre sense of humor and loved cats having several around the house up until her final days. She had a minor gambling problem, playing bingo three days per week at the zenith of her addiction. Later she would play the Ohio Lottery faithfully, collecting mostly not-a-winner tickets, but tons of great lottery fantasies. In 1988, she suffered a heart attack which led to a minor stroke, leaving her with a mild case of dementia the rest of her life. She hated moving out her suburban home into a small apartment in her final years but made the best of it. She watched her sons carry her husband's casket to his grave. Three months later, in December 2000, she joined him there, having said goodbye to her nine children before being carried by her sons up that same cemetary lawn.

Kin
Jay has eight brothers and sisters, from top to bottom: Carol, Gene, Janice, Lynne, Gary, Tom, (Jay), Alan and Michelle. For privacy and security reasons, not many details will be provided here. Suffice it to say that the Dover kids of Jo and Dick are representative of what politicians like to refer to as "the American People." Most have kids, some grandkids, live in houses, drive decent cars, work normal jobs, have distinct views on food, politics, religion, clothing, television, money, marriage, sex, landscaping, so forth. Jay is the only one of the clan currently residing west of the Mississippi.

ETC...