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This article by Richard J. Skelly was prepared for the April 6,

2005 issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.

Pushing the Limits of Jazz

‘With this album, I think I was responding to my own musical interests

and curiosities," vocalist Kate McGarry says. "Of course, one hopes

the jazz audience is going to follow you, and I think they will, if

you’re presenting the material in the right way. When I’m taking a

contemporary song, it becomes a vehicle for improvisation and

interaction with your group, so you can move the genre and change it."

McGarry takes a decidedly eclectic approach to jazz vocals on her new

album, "Mercy Streets," for the New York-based Palmetto Records label.

She interprets, with startlingly fresh arrangements, songs by Joni

Mitchell, Peter Gabriel, Brazilian composer Toninho Horta, even

Icelandic pop singer Bjork and Great American Songbook standards. She

performs on Friday, April 8, at the Mount-Burke Theater at the Peddie

School.

McGarry, one of 10 children (she is number six), was raised on Cape

Cod. She was first bit by the jazz bug in high school, when she

started singing, at the encouragement of her music teacher. "In high

school, I was taking piano and organ lessons, and I had a teacher who

gave me a Bill Evans record and an Ella Fitzgerald record," she says,

adding she doesn’t perform publicly on piano, but instead uses the

instrument as an aid to her own composing. While just two of her own

compositions are on "Mercy Streets," an earlier release, "Show Me,"

includes more of her originals.

Her father worked for New England Bell and her mother was a registered

nurse, "but to have all the kids she kind of stopped doing that for a

while," McGarry says in a phone interview from her home in Tarrytown,

New York. "Out on Cape Cod, we were our own town in a way. We played

together, sang music together, had different bands and made Super 8

movies together. All of my brothers and sisters were musically

inclined, and there were family jam sessions. Before TV, this was how

people would entertain themselves, and my parents loved the Mills

Brothers and other vocal groups. Both my parents were great singers

with wonderful voices, and they really considered music to be the

people’s entertainment – the notion that music belonged to everybody,

not just the stars or people who were already famous."

"When I was a junior in high school and checking out colleges, I feel

that jazz definitely chose me at that point in time," she says. While

majoring in African-American music and jazz at the University of

Massachusetts at Amherst, McGarry immersed herself in the recordings

of the classic jazz vocalists: Jon Hendricks, Sarah Vaughan, Ella

Fitzgerald, and Carmen McRae. "Sarah and Ella and Carmen, they’re

really the ones who defined jazz vocals for women," she says. "Their

influence still stays with me."

After graduating from U-Mass/Amherst in 1985, McGarry moved to Boston,

then to Los Angeles for a few years, where she secured gigs leading

her own bands at prestigious clubs, including the Jazz Bakery,

Catalina’s and the Vine Street Bar and Grille.

While in Los Angeles she also worked with Kenny Loggins, vocalist

Bobby McFerrin, trumpeter Clark Terry, and pianist Hank Jones. She

wrote or performed songs for the films "Caught" and "Boiling Point,"

and also appeared on-screen.

In 1996 McGarry moved back east to upstate New York and lived for a

while at a non-profit ashram, where she taught music courses. She

moved to New York City in 1999 and married to guitarist Keith Ganz a

few years ago. Ganz plays and arranges several tunes on "Mercy

Streets." Recently the couple settled in Tarrytown.

On "Mercy Streets" McGarry offers up creative takes on Joni Mitchell’s

"Chelsea Morning," Irving Berlin’s "How Deep Is The Ocean," Peter

Gabriel’s "Mercy Street," and the jazz classic, "Do You Know What It

Means To Miss New Orleans," a tune made famous in recent years by

actor/singer Harry Connick Jr.

At the Mount-Burke Theater concert at the Peddie School, and at her

official album release party at Joe’s Pub in New York City on April

15, McGarry will be accompanied by her husband on acoustic guitars,

Sean Smith on acoustic bass, and Stefan Schatz on drums. A

question-and-answer session will precede her performance at Peddie.

McGarry says: "It’s very intimate, the way we play together. We’re

playing some standards but with very unique arrangements. We’re also

playing some contemporary songs that are set in a more modern context.

We’re focused on the feeling of the song, that’s the most important

thing to me. The feeling of the song has to come through, and I like

getting that across to people and sharing it."

– Richard J. Skelly