Meet Katchie Cartwright

I currently live in:

San Antonio, Texas.

I joined All About Jazz in:

2023.

Why did you decide to contribute to All About Jazz?

As a recently-retired professor of music, I was looking to supplement my work as a performer with more writing and responded to a call from AAJ.

How do you contribute to All About Jazz?

I serve as a contributing editor on AAJ, writing and editing reviews and other types of articles.

What is your musical background?

I am a working musician with a PhD in music (ethnomusicology) from City University of New York.

My mother was a classically-trained singer, also a dancer and actor. Family and friends included many professional musicians, so music has always been part of my life. I've always loved to sing, and took up the flute in third grade. My eyes were opened and tastes broadened when the family moved to Lebanon for a year and I got to see and hear more of the world.

Got a modest scholarship to Berklee out of high school, but there were something like six women at the school. Flute was not a major, nor was voice, so I switched to piano midway through the first year and got to study with Charlie Banacos and play with Claudio Roditi a bit, among others. But I was in over my head at the piano, and us girls had to stay at Mrs. McAvoy's boarding house for finishing-school ladies, which was a major drag, so I ditched the entire enterprise after a year and moved to the San Francisco Bay area...

Moved back to the East Coast after my father died, settling in New York and resuming my musical studies at Brooklyn College in the '70s. There was no jazz studies or ethnomusicology there at the time, but I had plenty of opportunities to play wonderfully wiggy new music composed by my peers and professors, Charles Dodge and others, which was fun. But I wanted to pursue more of a "Dizzy Gillespie curriculum," as I imagined it, including studying congas, which I did for a time with Tommy Lopez, Sr., who played with Eddie Palmieri. So I put school on hold once again and took lessons with all sorts of interesting people who lived in or came through town at that time, Yusef Lateef, Lee Konitz, Phil Woods—it was New York!

Phil was sweet and supportive (and hysterically funny), but he steered me away from flute, calling it an [expletive-deleted] instrument, which took me aback. I looked around to see what other women were doing (it was harder to find role models at that time, though they were there, obscured) and saw that most of them/us were singers. I had always loved to sing, so I started to go that way. Again, it was strictly a DIY experience at that time. I was gigging before I knew much at all about what I was doing, but that didn't stop me. I became more serious later.

Life intervened at some point and I got married and had a kid, which is the beginning of another musical story. When you've been around as long as I have, there are plenty. Buy me a beer (non-alcoholic) and I'll share a few more...

What was the first record you bought that you would still listen to today?

Diz 'n' Bird: The Beginning (Roost/Roulette, 1966).

Aside from jazz, what styles of music do you enjoy?

I would describe myself as a musical omnivore. I love Brazilian music and am interested in improvisational musics of many types from all over the world. Growing up, my 'Three Bs' were Bird, Bach and Bob Dylan.

What are you listening to right now?

Nancy King and Glen Moore's Impending Bloom (Justice Records, 1991). The great singer is in hospital with a poor prognosis as I write this. It is such a beautiful album from beginning to end, and her rendering of Jobim's "Useless Landscape" (his lyric) is definitive, on a par with Elis Regina's "Inútil Paisagem," the magnificent version from Elis e Tom (Philips, 1974). Wishing you strength and peace, Nancy King.

Which five recent releases would you recommend to readers who share your musical taste?

I would highly recommend anything that has earned 3.5+ stars in one of my reviews.

What inspired you to write about jazz?

Writing is just another way of experiencing the music that I love and have devoted most of my life to—as a performer, teacher, student and consumer.

What do you like to do in your free time? Any hobbies?

Swimming, reading, traveling, enjoying a good meal, laughing with friends.

What role does jazz music play in your life?

Hard to say, because it's there pretty much all the time, as a foundation. It's a language, a way of communicating, a way of understanding, an aesthetic, a vocation, a pleasure. Right now, I'm hearing things in places like New York and elsewhere that take my breath away. Some of it is so soulful, funny, inventive, bodacious, audacious. I feel like we're in some kind of golden age, and that's uplifting.

How does writing about jazz contribute to the music itself?

The more we understand about the music, its creators and their communities, the richer our experience of it is. Writing and research can uncover contexts, stories, connections—all sorts of things that listening alone does not reveal.

What do you like most about All About Jazz?

I love the wide range of tastes we represent, the geographical breadth, historical depth and the professionalism.

What positives have come from your association with All About Jazz?

As a writer and editor, I have been introduced to so much music and writing that I would otherwise have missed. I go out more and I enjoy more music. I greatly value my association with all my AAJ colleagues, and feel incredibly lucky to have been taken under the wing of Chris May, our beloved senior editor who left us way too soon (read Remembering All About Jazz's Chris May). Thank you for your boundless wisdom and wit, dear Chris.

Vinyl, CD or Streaming?

CD or vinyl. I like the physical product, with booklet and liner notes and all the rest, right there on the jacket.

Which article from your archive is the most memorable and why?

The first one I wrote was the most memorable for me: Cecile McLorin Salvant: Mélusine. It is a fabulous album and it was great fun to research and write about.

If I could have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be and why?

First one who comes to mind is Nadia Boulanger, but I understand that she was pretty intimidating, so maybe include Dorothy Parker?

If I could go back in time and relive an experience, what would it be?

That kiss...

What's the song or piece of music you wish you could hear again for the first time?

Bernstein and Sondheim's "Somewhere" from the recording of West Side Story (Original Broadway Cast, Columbia Records, 1957). I was a kid and that whole recording transported me, but this song in particular.

YouTube credits: La Faute de la Musique: Songs of John Cage (Harriton Carved Wax, 2003). Cameron Brown: bass; Katchie Cartwright: voice, arrangements; Bill Goodwin: drums, producer; Richard Oppenheim: saxophone; James Weidman: piano.

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