Palmyra native comes home for fine tuning Former high school star making national waves

PALMYRA – When Jessica Tardy of Palmyra wants to perform, she gets on a plane, jetting to California or other venues where she can belt out tunes with “a voice like a steaming bath spiked with scotch” according to a recent review.

But when she wants to write, to put down the words that give her songs life, she leaves her band mates in Boston and comes home to rural Maine.

A 1999 graduate of Harvard University, 24-year-old Tardy first received critical acclaim for her performances with the Harvard Jazz Band. But local audiences may remember her as an award-winning vocalist with the Nokomis Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Choir.

While performing with the Harvard Jazz Band, Tardy garnered rave reviews for a tribute performance to Ella Fitzgerald at the Chicago Art Institute, and as a result she began getting other calls to perform in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Along the way she has developed a following for her style, which she describes as part Bonnie Raitt, with a bit of Tracy Chapman and the late Eva Cassidy thrown in.

Tardy says being onstage is like “being home. I never feel more at home than standing in the curve of a grand piano with a microphone in my hand.”

Tardy writes most of the songs she performs and has written 11 of the 12 that will be on her CD, to be recorded and released at The Studio in Portland in June.

After graduation from Harvard, Tardy went to Ireland where she worked as a travel writer and then returned to Boston to be a copywriter-producer for a digital Internet site. “They downsized,” said Tardy, which she interpreted as a blessing.

“I decided that I’d go home and save some money and really work on writing the CD,” she said. “I’ve spent the last year focusing on my best songs. This upcoming concert is like the kickoff for me.”

During this year she has also worked as a long-term substitute teacher in an alternative education program at Newport Elementary and Middle School.

Tardy will headline the benefit performance Sunday at the Masquers Cabaret in West Hollywood. The event will raise funds for StandUp for Kids, a nationwide nonprofit organization that helps homeless and at-risk youth through counseling and outreach programs.