Jill Tracy

Jill Tracy
Jill Tracy in 2010
Background information
Genres	glam noir, dark cabaret, post classical, gothic rock
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, composer, pianist, storyteller, host
Instruments	piano, voice
Years active	1995––present
Website	www.JILLTRACY.com

Jill Tracy is a singer, pianist, writer, composer, performance artist and "musical evocateur" based in San Francisco.

Known for her dark, evocative, cinematic style, Jill Tracy states that some of her biggest childhood influences were film score composers such as Bernard Herrmann, and classic suspense tales, including Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang films, Ray Bradbury stories, and Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. In an interview, she stated, "I learned from watching 'The Twilight Zone' that often it was what you didn’t see that really put the fear in you... How a story could evoke such emotion and response essentially revealing so little. I abide by that in my approach to music. It’s the breath, the spaces between the notes and the arrangements that make the work come alive. The Soul lives in the silence."

She thinks of her music as a portal, a "way-in" and calls this seductive and magical place she inhabits the "elegant side of the netherworld."

Jill Tracy is listed in San Francisco Magazine's Top 100 Creative Forces in the Bay Area, has been awarded "Best of the Bay" by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and has been nominated for two California Music Awards and SF Weekly Music Awards. She was called "a femme fatale for the thinking man” by the San Francisco Chronicle, which is a moniker that is now frequently used to describe her.

Following her 1996 solo debut CD Quintessentially Unreal, Tracy released Diabolical Streak (1999), her first studio album featuring The Malcontent Orchestra. The song "Evil Night Together" was awarded the SIBL international Grand Prize for songwriting. The album was listed among the "Top 10 Neo-Cabaret albums of all time" in Shift magazine. "Evil Night Together" has been featured on the CBS show NCIS, and Showtime chose the tune to promote the final season of Dexter (2013) in a promo entitled "The Final Symphony."