Lo Marie Shares an Important Lesson with “The Gap”
Lo Marie delivers a pitch-perfect piece full of honestly on the aptly named “The Gap”. With an arrangement that further emphasizes the sheer strength of her voice the entirety of the track rolls about in a gorgeous and intricate way.
Lo Marie holds nothing back because right at the forefront of the sound she lets the details flow. A whole sense of place enters into the equation, as the graceful instrumentation seems to sweep on through with such crystal clarity. By allowing these many elements plenty of room to roam they feel quite impassioned. The vocals feel particularly universal.
Lo Marie reveals of the track:
“The Gap” is a commentary of gender bias. It is something that affects my daily life. The best way I can describe it is death by a thousand cuts. It’s a stray comment here and an uncomfortable encounter there, all of them adding up to create this low-level of boiling rage that stays under the surface all day every day. Added on top of that is the gender wage gap – so we are enduring more while making less money. It’s so frustrating! The statistic for 2020 was $0.81 on the dollar. In a study conducted in 2019 by Women In Music and Berkeley College of Music, 84% of women in the music industry reported that they had been treated differently due to their gender. 68% said that their gender affected their employment, with self-employed freelancers, like myself, reporting the most bias.
Personally, I’ve been very lucky to find a group of people to work with who appreciate and respect me for exactly who I am. Most of the bias I’ve encountered has been from people who haven’t gotten to know me yet – and most of the time I’m able to win people over. However, that initial gut reaction is what tells me that there is a deeply rooted bias. The bright side is that I’ve seen people grow and learn and change after making an initial inappropriate comment. It is absolutely possible to fix the problem – and we’re making progress! In fact, the $0.81 in 2020 is actually up from $0.79 in 2019.
With all of that said, every now and again you just gotta do something to validate yourself as alive and worthwhile. “The Gap” was one of those moments for me. Its fun spunkiness makes me remember how much I love being alive, how much I love being my own boss, and how much I love making music! You just can’t help but smile when you hear the Purdie Shuffle!”
Lo Marie has blossomed as a confident artist with a focused vision. In this spirit, she opted to self-produce. Lo Marie’s aesthetic encompasses jazz harmonic constructs, urban grooves, soulful guitar passages, and the expressivity of the jazz and neo-soul vocal traditions. Her debut EP, Beyond the Age of Reason(2012), produced by ace Nashville session man Jerry Kimbrough, earned Lo Marie an international following, enabling her to tour the US from New York to Los Angeles. Her follow-up, Solid Ground(2015), also produced by Kimbrough, won the “Jazz Album of the Year at the 2015 MAMA Awards (Madison Area Music Association Awards). In 2018, Lo Marie won MAMA awards for “Best Female Vocalist,” “Best Jazz Performer,” and “Cover Song of the Year” for her duet, "I've Got A Crush On You," with the legendary guitar player Cliff Frederiksen.