Jazz Articles about Kate McGarry

About Kate McGarry

Album Review

Kate McGarry, Lenora Zenzalai Helm, Lois Deloatch, Nnenna Freelon: The Sistering

Read "The Sistering" reviewed by Jacob Sylvester

by Jacob Sylvester
May 24, 2026

The collaborative album created by jazz vocalists Kate McGarry, Lenora Zenzalai Helm, Lois Deloatch, and Nnenna Freelon, titled The Sistering, is a powerful musical journey that explores the bonds of friendship and heritage. Released in early 2026, the project uses the metaphor of “sistering"--a building technique where two boards are joined to make a structure stronger--to show how these four women support one another. The album begins with the “River Song," which introduces the idea of life as a flowing ...

Album Review

Kate McGarry + Keith Ganz Ensemble: What to Wear in the Dark

Read "What to Wear in the Dark" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 22, 2021

Being taken for granted is the greatest tribute and worst slight to any artist. Kate McGarry has made music that brilliantly colors outside the lines since her release, Show Me (Palmetto Records) in 2003 (there was a 1992 standards release, Easy To Love (Vital Records) that is out-of-print). Her career has provided five provocatively thoughtful and inventive recordings between that release and 2018's The Subject Tonight Is Love (Binxtown Records). Listeners have come to expect something a little different from ...

Album Review

Kate McGarry + Keith Ganz Ensemble: What to Wear in the Dark

Read "What to Wear in the Dark" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 19, 2021

Let us start with a nod to Steely Dan, the rock/jazz group headed up by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, a pair of tunesmiths who hit a career zenith in the early 1970s with albums like Can't Buy A Thrill (1972), Countdown To Ecstasy (1973), Pretzel Logic (1974) and Aja (1974), all on ABC Records. The group drew in top jazz artists to help craft their albums—saxophonists Wayne Shorter and Tom Scott, guitarists Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour, drummers Steve ...

Album Review

John Hollenbeck: Songs You Like a Lot

Read "Songs You Like a Lot" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
July 19, 2021

Con questo disco John Hollenbeck conclude la trilogia iniziata otto anni fa sulla reinterpretazione di famosi brani della popular music (Songs I Like A Lot, Sunnyside 2013) e proseguita due anni dopo con Songs We Like a Lot per la stessa etichetta. Nel primo album la scelta dei temi era strettamente personale, nel secondo fu condivisa con alcuni partner (i cantanti Theo Bleckmann e Kate McGarry) ed ora nasce dalla selezione di proposte giunte all'arrangiatore dal suo ...

Album Review

John Hollenbeck: Songs You Like A Lot

Read "Songs You Like A Lot" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 14, 2021

Every ending a beginning, each conclusion an act of creation. If multi-hyphenate John Hollenbeck's Songs You Like A Lot doesn't slot within that sentiment, nothing really does. This collection marks the completion of a lauded trilogy that's stretched out across the better part of a decade, but it also signals the start of something new--the Flexatonic Arts non-profit, which will serve as an umbrella for Hollenbeck's arts and education initiatives, and the record label it houses, acting as a home ...

Album Review

Kate McGarry: The Subject Tonight Is Love

Read "The Subject Tonight Is Love" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
January 25, 2019

Il titolo di questo disco è preso da una poesia del 1300, scritta dal mistico sufi Hafiz e presenta un fascinoso percorso, che indaga i differenti aspetti dell'amore in un repertorio di undici brani. Protagonisti sono la cantante Kate McGarry, il chitarrista Keith Ganz (suo partner in altri album e nella vita) e il pianista Gary Versace che ha collaborato con entrambi in varie occasioni. I tre artisti incidono assieme per la prima volta e ospitano in un paio di ...

Album Review

Cathy Segal-Garcia: The Jazz Chamber

Read "The Jazz Chamber" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
November 2, 2018

On this album, Cathy Segal-Garcia, a vocalist and educator on the Los Angeles jazz scene, comes up with something special, working with a chamber orchestra and a group of jazz musicians to produce a wide-ranging program that veers from lush romanticism to complex jazz-funk. On much of the disc, Segal-Garcia's thick, classically formal voice, combined with a full string section, presents a lilting hybrid of jazz and light classical music. On first hearing it sounds a bit too ...