Some might think Antoinette Montague-Baugh has a dual personality. During the work week she”™s Antoinette Montague-Baugh, vice president of human resources at Boardroom Inc. in Stamford. On weekends, she”™s Antoinette Montague, jazz and blues singer, content for the time being to build her growing reputation by appearing at a growing number of clubs and other venues in Manhattan, Westchester County and Connecticut. Tomorrow, she”™ll be part of the fifth annual September Concert ”“ a free, citywide concert series in New York”™s five boroughs on the anniversary of 9/11.
“If I can get a really great gig once a month, that”™s cool.” she said. “I have a balanced life. I know what takes care of me.” What”™s taking care of her is Boardroom, where she has been for the last 20 years. “I remember the day I got my first office,” she said. “I sat down inside and said, ”˜I”™d better stop pretending I”™m going to be a singer. Let me focus on one thing.”™”
Her move into that office took a rather circuitous route from her original plans to study law at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., which she attended on a full Martin Luther King academic scholarship. But in her freshman year, her mother developed breast cancer, which metastasized to brain cancer. “When she died in my senior year, I just couldn”™t concentrate,” Montague said of her grief. She decided to release her scholarship and drop out of college.
She joined a legal firm in her hometown of Newark, N.J., as a legal secretary for a year, then landed a job with People”™s Express no-frills airline, working staggered hours that let her return part time to Seton Hall for a short time and fly free to Sarasota Beach almost each Thursday. “I left at 4:30 in the morning, got there about 8 o”™clock, hung out at the beach till 4 o”™clock, then few back to Newark,” she said. “It was cheaper for me to fly to the beach than it was to go to the Jersey Shore.”
While waiting in the terminal for one of those return flights, which was overbooked, she sat next to a married couple, who struck up a conversation with her. The husband seemed a bit grumpy, asked her if she could get them on a flight, and asked her how she liked working for the airline. “I told him that I look for a new job every Tuesday,” she said. “If you get us on the flight, I”™ll get you a job at Chase Manhattan as a secretary,” he told her. She did, and he did.
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Gotta sing
The next Monday she was at the front desk at Chase Manhattan”™s Houston and Broadway branch “as the safe deposit girl,” where she remained for about 18 months until a Chase customer who owned an interior landscape business hired her away at double the salary to be an assistant office manager. That job lasted eight months until the business went bust and, after some panic and an odd job or two, Montague became a computer typesetter at Abraham and Strauss. Nine months later she joined Boardroom, then in Manhattan, in the newsletter publisher”™s typesetting office and, later that year, became Antoinette Montague-Baugh. “We met when I worked at the bank,” she said of her husband, John.
That was 20 years ago, and during that time she became manager of the typesetting department, then moved into the human resources department, then became vice president of human resources two years after the company moved to Greenwich in 1995. The company later moved to Stamford.
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But even though she decided to concentrate on her Boardroom career the first day she moved into her new office, she couldn”™t get music out of her head. “When you”™re a singer, you can”™t stop it, it”™s in the marrow of your bones,” she said. “I have music on my mind when I”™m driving or walking in the hallway. I always have a song in my head. And it may sound kind of corny, but I always have a song in my heart.”
Montague grew up singing, then was entranced by Seton Hall”™s gospel choir ”“ a form of music foreign to the church she and her mother attended. “I would sit outside the choir room listening to this amazing sound that made me feel something emotionally,” she said. Choir members invited her to join them, “and I went in and sat in the soprano section.” The experience, she said, “was exhilarating.”
She joined the choir and became one of its lead singers, but “everything sort of stopped” when her mother died. For a few years she and a friend drove to a church in Mamaroneck, N.Y., where they were members of the choir. “It was a bit of a hike from Newark, and after a one or two fender-benders on the Cross Bronx Expressway, I had to start focusing on what I was going to do,” she said. “The years were clicking by, and I decided I was not going to have a gospel singing career. I did a little bit of R&B, but nothing was really going on in my life that was inspiring.”
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Humbling experience
One rainy Saturday Montague-Baugh was sitting in on a prolonged employee interview at Boardroom when she had a bit of an epiphany. “You know what?” she thought. “This is Saturday. I should be doing something else, putting on my makeup, getting ready to make other people happy.” She had jump-started her passion for performance.
She began a routine known to just about any aspiring musician ”“ doing ”˜open mics”™ at clubs and lounges, usually Monday nights when anyone can show up and sing or play an instrument into an open microphone. “It”™s a humbling proposition,” she said. “You have to leave your ego someplace else.”
Six years ago Montague became a professional singer, earning just about enough money for her gigs to pay the band that backs her up. She”™s been appearing at jazz societies, open-air concerts and, sometimes, at jazz vespers at St. Peter”™s Church in Manhattan. And her album, “Pretty Blues,” is receiving a lot of air time on WBGO, a jazz station in Newark, and glowing reviews in jazz magazines (www.antoinettemontague.com). Her goals, though, are a bit more expansive ”“ find a good agent, nail down a good recording contract “and sing the blues at Carnegie Hall.”
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