Serendipitous Encounters--A Chat with Jon Regen

I arrived at JFK International Airport just before midnight on Sunday morning. The familiar feel of humid summer air, the rows and rows of taxis and the sounds of honking horns were music to my soul and affirmed the fact that I had arrived in New York City. Alex, my brother-like- friend who came into my life at Saitama High School right outside of Tokyo after we each received Kikkoman Soy Sauce Scholarships more than a decade earlier, was waiting outside for me. As we began driving toward Long Island in the wee hours of the morning, I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty about accepting my friend’s hospitality at such a late/early hour of the day and even questioning if it was the “right” decision to leave the city. True to my writer’s mantra, it was of course ‘right’ and better than anything I could have planned. After a few rounds of drinks and a case of the late night munchies, I retreated to my loft just before 4:30am. Several hours later, we grabbed breakfast at a diner and were en route to Sparkling Point Vineyard more than an hour away. Alex’s friend, who is a Steinway Piano sales rep, had organized a special event where a jazz pianist and singer named Jon Regen was playing. I’ll admit that while I’ve slowly come to acquire a taste for jazz, I was much more excited about sipping vino with friends than I was about hearing the musician. But, while sitting outside the perfectly green winery, sipping on champagne, I couldn’t’ help but tune into the music that set the ambiance. There was something charming about the music that Jon Regen was playing and singing, prompting me to purchase one of his cds. I would have been happy just to purchase a cd and give it away as a gift, but the wine servers searched for a pen and insisted I get Jon’s autograph. Since Jon was done playing for the day, I decided to squeeze in a quick interview with him. Struggling to hold back his Bronchitus-induced cough, Jon shared his story. Turns out, the now 40-year old musician took up singing only seven years earlier, when he noticed that conventional jazz just didn’t capture his experience as a man, as a hopeless romantic or as an artist. “It’s pretty amazing to be able to capture the human experience in a three minute song,” Jon said. “And, what is it that inspires the content of the songs?” I began asking. But before I could finish the question, Jon responded. “Girls,” he said with a smile. Jon described how the imperfections of relationships, combined with the strain his traveling musician career puts on relationships, inspires his song writing. As a serial dater, who compares men to shoes (I love both men and shoes, but have yet to find one of either that goes with all aspects of life) and have come to embrace relationships as the inspiration for writing projects and trips around the world to pursue random journalism projects, attend weddings of commitment-prone friends and continue to gather more stories, I found Jon to be a person of my own heart. I took Jon’s cds back to my tiny room in the Paramount hotel in New York City that I shared with my parents. And, the rest, as they say, is history. I’ve been in a serious relationship with Jon’s music ever since. True to Jon’s words, each of his songs is a musical story about a phase of love—the beginning, the end, the starting over phase, the forgetting and moving on part and the longing part—that anyone whose ever experienced a relationship or a heartbreak can connect with. To get a sense of who the man behind the music is, listen to Jon’s interview.