Jerry Jean is an internationally acclaimed songwriter, producer, and musician in New York' City’s independent music scene. Jerry has written and produced three EPs and a full length album, Do We Reach Home. Jerry's genre-defying style draws from pop, alternative, soul, electronic, and classical music. His melancholy and earnest lyrics are often layered over a labyrinth of strings, synthesizers, drums and piano.
Jerry was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and immigrated to the United States as a young child. Raised in New Jersey, Jerry began violin lessons at age 4 and piano lessons at age 7. As an adolescent, he abandoned formal classical lessons and started playing and singing the deep catalog of Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, and Billy Joel on the family piano. He also played in his high school jazz ensemble, and was selected as NJ’s All-State jazz pianist his junior year.
Jerry moved to New York City to attend NYU's Steinhardt School, where he completed his BA and MA in vocal performance, with additional studies in music composition. On the music production side, he was largely self-taught, watching countless YouTube tutorials and self-producing all of his own work.
Jerry released his debut EP, Fighting For You, in 2012. The album is a one-man tour de force - Jerry wrote every note, played every instrument, and produced and mixed each track. The EP is emblematic of what a solo artist can create "in the box,” and is a collection of love songs, thought pieces, and a touch of electronica. The EP charted on iTunes the day of release, temporarily eclipsing major label artists.
His second EP, Your Love, features female artists singing about love, loss and heart break. Jerry’s songwriting coalesces into a pop/soul hybrid, and the album includes vocalists Amber Iman (Hamilton, Shuffle Along) and Corbin Reid (Rent, American Idiot). The title track, “Your Love,” is a 2014 International Songwriting Competition winner.
Jerry's third EP, Far Away, a collaboration with Paul Beaubrun, tackles issues of social justice. Beaubrun, one of Haiti’s rising stars, joins Jerry on two searing songs about racial profiling and the search for unity and understanding. The second track, “Enough,” is a 2016 Global Peace Song Awards finalist.
Jerry's 2017 full-length debut solo album, Do We Reach Home, explores the strains of modern living, human connection, and renewal. Cinematic and grand, Jerry weaves together haunting melodies and searching lyrics over live strings and a warm, piano-driven backdrop. Each song is a miniature think piece, and they collectively explore the search for home and belonging amidst the fragmentation of truth in the social media era. Top conservatory-trained NYC musicians from both the classical and rock worlds round out Jerry’s vocals and piano. Extensive layering techniques involving microphone and instrument swapping were utilized with 8 string players to achieve a lush orchestral blend. John O’Reilly, Jr. (fun., The Format) anchors the rhythm section. Jerry produced and arranged the album, Bryan Cook (One Republic, Train) mixed, and 11-time Grammy winner Bob Ludwig mastered. Vinyl was cut by Scott Hull at Masterdisk, and the album is available as a 180 gram double LP at 45rpm for optimum analog sound. The single-take music video for the title track, “Do We Reach Home,” features Jerry and an enigmatic modern dancer against a post-industrial backdrop. It has been viewed over 1 million times on Facebook.
