46bliss

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Why the name 46bliss? Member, David was dozing off while riding through the New York borough of Queens on the #7 line subway one day, when he heard the conductor announce the approaching stop as “46 Bliss”. Lightening struck, the doors opened, the seas parted and David hasn’t been the same since.

Jack was living with his family in France happily playing drums along with records when his father couldn't take it any longer. He forced Jack to take lessons at the local Conservatory. As it turned out, the drum teacher there was the jazz legend Kenny Clarke, one of the fathers of bebop. Jack studied under him and the great Dante Agostini for five years before coming back to the U.S for college at Wesleyan University where he studied South Indian drumming and electronic music. Jack moved to New York after college and played in bands and took up computer programming to make a living. He melded both interests when he created “Sounder”, an ambient music generation program that won awards from Wired Magazine and kudos in RollingStone.

David took up piano because of his love of music by the Beatles, Moody Blues and Strawbs but always resisted his mother’s requests to “play for the guests”. He attended Berklee School of Music in Boston, staying on after graduating to play in bands for a couple years. Once in New York, David started writing songs more seriously, and was signed to a publishing deal with Warner Chappell. Besides his involvement in 46bliss, David co-wrote a series of kids' songs that he and partner Jeff turned into a full-length musical, “Captain Gravy: Where is the Moon?”, which was featured at the NYC Fringe Festival in 2003. He and Jack have worked as remixers as well, producing the chilled version of Mahalia Jackson singing “White Christmas” for the CD “Chilled Christmas” coming in winter 2003.

Clare grew up in a small fishing village in the Canadian boonies, where there was no electricity and her family of 11 children occasionally had to eat dirt. After her parents separation, she spent a year as a free-spirited vagabond living with her mother near Paris (the same town Jack lived in, but she missed him by a year). Coming back to Canada, she embarked on a life on the road with a travelling troupe of Shakespearean actors, working as a dresser and seamstress, writing poetry by night. Ending up in the East Village of New York City, Clare sang in small groups of improvising musicians, and that's where she met David.