Click here to enter Official Website

Songs, photos, tour dates, news, contact info,
CD purchase, bio, merchandise, press and more

MySpace Page
Sonicbids EPK
Listen 

The car was clinging to the side of the world. The lights of the oncoming cars shone into her eyes - giving her night blindness. She began to hum a song to calm her nerves - she didn't want to fall off the side of the world with her grandmother sitting beside her in the passenger seat. The humming was helping and so she began to sing outright, feeling more courage and certainty with each note. Grandmother turned to her, eyes as big as headlights, "You know what you should've been, Arie? You should've been a singer." Without taking her eyes off of the road, she answered... "But Granny, that's what I am."

At that time, Arie Thompson had a budding and successful acting career that included network TV appearances, Shakespeare in the Park, Off-Broadway Theatre, independent film and was an award-winning performance artist.

"I always wanted to be an actress/performer, so that's what I was pursuing and I didn't have a strong background with music, but this dream always stuck with me and then one day I realized-- 'I am going to sing now' and that's what I did."

Arie's first music gig was as the frontwoman for the funkrock outfit 4DSEA. "It was a great experience - the shows were fun and high-energy and I got my first real studio experience recording a full length album, but at the end of the day, I knew I would have to go solo to really express what was in me, so I left the band after a year and a half."

In June of 2006, Arie bought a red 1991 Jeep Cherokee for $500 from a Gypsy on a Brooklyn street, drove to a rented cabin in upstate New York and made her first solo recordings on an old mac laptop. "I didn't really know what I was doing," she admits. "I just had these songs inside of me and a ridiculously romantic notion of going to the woods upstate to get them out...I was obsessed with Bob Dylan at the time...I'm kind of funny that way. I found a guy on craigslist who gave me one piano lesson on the little keyboard that I had bought. I remember there was something manic about the lesson--in 45 minutes, he gave me an introduction to simple functional harmony, chords and songwriting and then I never saw him again. He was some kind of teaching genius, though... I used the notes from that lesson to write my first real song - it's on my record."

Arie returned to the city after only 3 weeks at the cabin - "Yeah, it would be nice to have some story about how I came back after 3 weeks with all of these songs written, but that's not what happened. Between an incredibly persistent raccoon, a feral cat with a bad attitude, and having to choose between opening the windows to breathe or being eaten alive by mosquitoes, I just came back with a clear understanding of what I needed to do. I did manage to write and record about 4 songs and used that demo to start booking gigs in the city. In my good fortune I was able to find really seasoned musicians who were willing to work with me-- alot of really incredible jazz cats who were so generous with their time and knowledge."

After gigging regularly in the City, Arie decided to go back to school for music in order get deeper into the heart of what she had to express as a singer. She enrolled in City College in the spring of 2008 and auditioned for and was accepted to the Jazz Vocal Performance program. "I came to this path at a comparatively late point compared to so many musicians I know who have been playing since childhood. Sometimes that makes it frustrating, but I think that it's been a definite benefit in my songwriting. My musical influences are so diverse and without formal training, my ear just heard innovative ways of combining different styles. Now that I am studying music, I have an easier time consciously doing what I was feeling my way through." She decided to radically restructure her sound - using stripped down acoustic arrangements of her songs she connected with musicians Bennett Miller, Kenneth Salters and Ben Cassorla to record another EP entitled "4 Songs." The following fall, she officially began her studies in the jazz vocal program and had the good fortune to study privately with Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Kate McGarry.

Now,ÝArie Thompson has released the album "I'll Know Who You Are When I See You Again." The album was recorded in Brooklyn, Harlem and East Hampton and was mixed and mastered by Grammy winning engineer, Cynthia Daniels. This record bears witness to the growing influence of jazz on Arie's sound, songcraft and repertoire. The result is a cohesive collection of music that addresses themes of personal freedom, longing, lost love and redemption. "I dig my album because it really appeals to a wide range of people but it's still completely authentic. I see myself as participating in a tradition of vocalists and songwriters like Billie, Nina, Dolly, and Joni who are really coming from their hearts with these great songs that everyone can relate to. People tell me that my music makes them want to sing along and that's pretty much the reason why I'm doing this, so I'll just keep it up."

 Buy CD now at CD Baby

Home >> Artists A-Z >> Arie Thompson
Find by Genre >> Acoustic >> Arie Thompson