Jenn Summers

This May singer-songwriter Jenn Summers releases a debut of exhilarating soul-pop with instantly familiar hooks and uplifting lyrics. The native New Yorker radiates an ease and warmth in the silky swagger of her rhythmic flow. She glows with an unflinching positivity hard fought after a nearly lifelong battle with congenital heart disease. Jenn’s undergone 3 open heart surgeries in 23 years, but for the last 10 years she’s been strong and healthy. Now she is ready to move on. Transformed, positive, and refreshed, she’s issuing the aptly titled When Life Gives You Lemons.

The balmy 10-track album jubilantly bursts forth with a head-bob groove and the warm tapestry of soul-folk acoustic guitars. The opening track, “Blue Velveteen,” is a paean to a full heart and an empty pocketbook. “It’s the Bob Marley concept of life being full and having riches but not having tons of material possessions,” Jenn explains. Her vocals on “Blue Velveteen” reflect this aesthetic, there is a richness but carefree gait to her singing conveying she has pipes but is tastefully keeping things breezy and rhythmic. The instrumentation is appropriately lilting, with tropical ukuleles, airy backup vocals, crystalline electric guitar work, strummy acoustic guitars, and a modern touch of refined R&B-flavored beats adding a little urban to the quaintly rustic.

The sweetly silly ukulele-centric “Muchi Muchi” evokes Don Ho and Jack Johnson with its Hawaiian meets modern surfer-folk stylistic touches. Jenn co-wrote the tune with upcoming songwriter Ashley Levy. “Ashley and I were looking for good song titles and we came across ‘Muchi Muchi.’ There was no definition for it, we just started saying, ‘I love you, Muchi Muchi.’ I wrote it about my cat, Joey, who I adore,” Jenn says laughing. With ease and elegance, and tongue planted firmly in cheek, she sings: I love you nine lives long you know/ forever/ is better together it’s true/ muchi muchi/muchi muchi.

The album’s defining moment is the single "When Life Gives you Lemons, Make L.O.V.E.” Not only does the title have a deeper meaning given Jenn’s brave victory over congenital heart disease, but it’s stylistic parameters led to an artistic breakthrough for Jenn. She had previously issued one album under her birth name Jenn Costantino but felt emotionally disconnected from it. When her producer and coconspirator Tomas Costanza (Boys Like Girls, Secondhand Serenade, Hilary Duff, and Katie Waissel) played her the title track, it took her everywhere she wanted to go: to California, Hawaii, anywhere there is beautiful weather, summertime all year, and good feelings. Jenn went to Killingsworth studios in LA to soak up the beachy Cali vibes, and she even filmed the video for "When Life Gives you Lemons, Make L.O.V.E.” on Malibu beach. The track pointed the way for a rebirth, and to commemorate this new era Jenn, took her grandma’s maiden name “Summers.” Not only was the gesture a loving tribute, the name was evocative of the new music and spirit she set out to pursue.

Jenn first had open heart surgery at the tender age of 3 months. She ended up having 4 surgeries total and countless emergency hospital visits to have her heart “shocked” back into a into a proper and healthy rhythm. Her last surgery—battery replacement surgery for her pacemaker—was in 2009 and 3 weeks later she sang the National Anthem at Keystone Park for Cyclone Game in support of The American Heart Association. In 2011 she sang the National Anthem in front of 12,000 people for the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk. As an actress she’s made television appearances on “Project Runway,” “Ed,” and “Law & Order,” as well as several projects on the MTV network. Reflecting on her journey Jenn says: “I know where I came from and this new album’s happy sound is about putting things in the past and moving on.