Chances are you're unfamiliar with Caity Gyorgy (pronounced George). But if you do know her work, you're probably already convinced she's on her way to becoming a household name. Caity is a wise and savvy 24-year-old who sings in a style years beyond her age. In fact, when I first heard her a couple of months ago, I thought she had been singing jazz since the 1950s or was the great-granddaughter of Annie Ross.
Then I was bowled over to learn that all of the songs except two on her newly released album, Featuring, were written by Caity—words and music. And the arrangements. These aren't trite tunes about the moon or a summer breeze. They are seriously sophisticated, true jazz songs that have all the hallmarks of becoming standards. When you add her confident fluid voice, you realize that Caity's many musical talents and high taste level truly are remarkable.
To hear what I mean, let's listen to the opening track of her new album. Here's her song I Feel Foolish...
As you can hear, her trio is exceptional as well: Felix Fox-Pappas on piano, Thomas Hainbuch on bass and Jacob Wutzke on drums, with Daniel Barta on alto saxophone.
The album's guests include Kyle Pogline on trumpet; Virginia MacDonald on clarinet; Allison Au, Daniel Barta, Christine Jensen and Tymish Koznarsky on alto saxophone; Lucas Dubovik, Pat LaBarbera and Kyle Tarder-Stoll on tenor saxophone; Jocelyn Gould on guitar; and vocalist Laura Anglade added on The Feeling Is Mutual.
Here's the album's track list and soloists:
Recently, I caught up with Caity by email. She just finished her masters degree in May, which tells me we can now expect the full thrust of her productivity and ambitions. Stand back. She also won Canada's 2022 JUNO for best vocal album. Here's our e-conversation:
JazzWax: Where in Calgary, Alberta, did you spend your childhood?
Caity Gyorgy: I grew up in two different suburbs of Calgary. After my parents’ divorce when I was 10, my younger brother and I spent alternating weeks at the homes of my dad and mum. My maternal grandmother was born in England and moved to Canada as a child after World War II, when her dad, an Anglican minister, set up a parish in Ottawa. My maternal grandfather’s family also emigrated from England, and he was the first in his family to be born in Canada.
JW: So your last name comes from your father’s side?
CG: Yes. My paternal grandad also was the first in his family born in Canada. His family had come over in the 1930s from Hungary. They emigrated so that my great-grandfather could work in the coal mines in a Hungarian community in Alberta. My paternal grandmother’s family has been in North America for many generations. Many of her people were farmers and homesteaders, so it’s likely they came over from the U.K. with the promise of farmland and building a new life.
JW: Calgary is a big city but informed by mountains, cattle and oil. What shaped you growing up?
CG: Now that I’ve spent a lot of time in Toronto, in the eastern part of Canada, I realize how different it was to have grown up in the west. In Calgary, I often skied in the mountains and never realized how lucky I was. The biggest presence the oil industry had on my life was as a game. I’d count the number of operating pumpjacks on road trips. As for Calgary’s cattle, let’s just say I don’t eat beef in eastern Canada. It’s not the same.
JW: Did your parents’ divorce make you more introverted and more likely to explore your inner talents?
CG: Their separation was hard on me because I was old enough to know what was going on. I also knew that their parting was likely irreversible. My brother is four years younger than me, so it didn’t shape him as much. I’m lucky I had him. For many years, we were each other’s only constant as we moved from house to house each week. We’re still very close. As for turning inward, I think that happened many years later.
JW: How did you deal with the household turmoil you experienced?
CG: For over a decade, I blocked out a lot of what happened. But a few years ago, I started drawing upon those experiences to make music. My song There By the Door is dedicated to my childhood home, which was sold after my parents split up. I had never cried while writing music, but I cried when I composed that one.
JW: You took piano lessons when you were 9 or 10. Did you take voice lessons as well?
CG: I took piano lessons, but I didn’t take them seriously. I took piano and voice from the same teacher, dividing my 60-minute lesson in half. Soon, singing became such a passion that it began chewing into my piano time. My earliest experience with jazz was probably listening to the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s Charlie Brown Christmas album every year. It was and still is one of my favorite records. My dad would play it as soon as December 1st rolled around.
JW: How did you come to jazz?
CG: When I was 17. I started dating a jazz drummer and wanted to have more to talk about on our dates. So I took him to my favorite record store on one of our first dates. While I was looking through the soul section and running my fingers though albums by Otis Redding, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Etta James and Sam Cooke, he was digging through the jazz section. He picked out a reissue of Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool and urged me to buy it.
JW: Did you?
CG: The 180-gram record was $45, which was a lot for a 17-year-old high school student who worked part time for minimum wage at a home decor store. But I did. I went home, listened and didn’t understand a single thing about it. Now, of course, the album is one of my favorites. As for jazz vocalists, I was introduced to the form at a Starbucks, thanks to a compilation that included Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, and Abbey Lincoln. I’ve loved the music ever since.
JW: And the jazz drummer?
CG: I’m still dating him.
JW: Were your teenage years in high school tough?
CG: My high school experience was actually pretty wonderful. I think within my circles, I was fairly popular, so high school wasn’t oppressive. I took a lot of choir classes. Each week, I had around 10½ hours of choir rehearsal and three hours of music theory. I was in the chamber choir, concert choir and vocal jazz choir. I also really enjoyed my other courses. Chemistry and math were highlights.
JW: When did your jazz vocal conversion take place?
CG: During my last year of high school. During that year, I bought two vocal “real" books and started learning the repertoire from A to Z. I was listening to a lot of singers, going down YouTube “rabbit holes,” memorizing Ella and Sarah scat solos, and trying a bit of scatting myself. I had also started going to jams and getting to know people in my local jazz scene. In my last year of high school, I began to focus on building my repertoire and gigging. I was also preparing to attend college in Toronto.
JW: Where did you attend college?
CG: At Humber College. It was an incredible experience for me. Humber gave me the tools and experience I needed to become a professional. I took arranging courses in my third and fourth year and I tried to arrange on my own using my ears and a keyboard. I was lucky to have great professors who gave helpful feedback. I studied small-ensemble arranging with Andy Ballantyne and large-ensemble arranging with John McLeod. Now, when I arrange my own music, I usually hear the arrangement as I write my songs and use the piano to help me get my ideas out. However, this can be a bit tricky because my ears are lightyears ahead of my piano chops.
JW: Is this how it has worked for all of your songs?
CG: Yes, almost every one of them has been written in one sitting and in less than 20 minutes. When inspiration strikes, it really strikes me hard. I like to utilize certain tools like the Voice Memo feature on my phone, so that if I’m out and about and I have an idea, I can quickly sing it into my phone and pick up on it later when I have a piano in front of me. I also use the Notes app on my iPhone to write down certain words or phrases that intrigue me or a concept to expand upon later. I love writing. I wish I had more time to devote to it. I also need to work on my piano skills so that I’ll have an easier time taking my music where I want it to go. I can hear what I want to do, but finding the right voicing is challenging.
JW: Regrets?
CG: Yeah, maybe I should have been more strict about devoting the full 30 minutes to the piano during my lessons. Ha!
JW: Which composers have been most influential in terms of your songwriting?
CG: By the time I arrived at Humber College, I had learned over 200 standards. To this day, I keep listening and adding to that number. I am such a fan of the lyricism of Dorothy Fields. I find her writing to be very clever. She favors interesting and intriguing rhymes, witty subject matter, sarcasm, a deep understanding of emotion and a ridiculously accurate way of putting it all to pen. I love the compositions of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and Richard Rodgers. I think my obsession with learning standards helped me write my own songs, sometimes very late at night. The construction of standards rubs off. I’m a night owl, and my most productive hours are between 7 and 11:30 p.m., sometimes extending to 2 a.m.
JW: Vocalese seems to come naturally to you. You’re very loose and free and have a true understanding of the genre. What’s the toughest part about singing fast-paced story songs?
CG: I think vocalese might come naturally to me because of the hours I’ve spent transcribing and learning the language of the music. I’ve lifted hundreds of instrumental solos, which have given me a greater understanding of harmony, melody and rhythm. Once I have my story, I try to tell it using notes that someone like Sonny Stitt or Clifford Brown would have used. For me, writing a vocalese is a lot easier than writing a tune because the vocalese doesn’t necessarily have to follow the same rhythm and melody in each section of the song. There’s so much freedom.
JW: You went on to complete a masters at McGill University, yes?
CG: Yes, I finished in May. This is the first time in my life that I haven’t been in school and I love it. I’ve been focusing a lot on releasing my new album, Featuring, recording other albums, and writing and arranging for upcoming shows and projects. I'm devoting so much of my time to developing myself as an artist, musician, composer, arranger and lyricist. I feel very lucky to be living my life this way.
JW: Explain your new album’s title. Why Featuring?
CG: I chose the title because each track on the album features a special guest soloist. I was very fortunate to be able to include so many wonderful musicians on this project. These people are friends, mentors and teachers. I’m a huge fan of every one of them.
JW: Tell me about them.
CG: Most I met in Toronto, but a couple I met in Montreal. I was fortunate to study with Christine Jensen while at McGill in Montreal and she helped me a lot through the process of creating the album. I also was fortunate to be taught by Pat LaBarbera while at Humber. I was in his ensemble, one of the best groups to be a part of. I loved the repertoire and I appreciated how generous Pat was and still is with his knowledge of the music. I feel privileged to have gotten to hear stories about some of the musicians he worked with, or some of the venues and situations he played in. It was incredibly inspirational.
JW: And the others?
CG: Many of the others like Virginia MacDonald, Allison Au, and Jocelyn Gould I met at Humber. Allison went to Humber so I had worked with her in bands led by others at Humber. Virginia was at Humber while I was there but I didn’t really get to know her very well until we were in Pat’s ensemble. Jocelyn started teaching at Humber when I was in my fourth year. I reached out to her to do some recording and playing.
JW: Where did you meet the others?
CG: With Kyle Tarder-Stoll, Kyle Pogline, Tymish Koznarsky, Lucas Dubovik, Daniel Barta, Thomas Hainbuch, and Felix Fox-Pappas, I met them all in college and I consider them all great friends. I first met my friend Laura Anglade online during the pandemic. We did a virtual collaboration. She's amazing and inspiring. Jacob Wutzke is the drummer, and I’ve known him for more than 7 years. We met in Calgary.
JW: Which song on the new album is most personal?
CG: I Miss Missing You. I don’t tend to open up about specific personal topics in my writing. I try to write more generally so that others may relate. But I Miss Missing You is about one specific person. I’ve been in a long-term relationship for over seven years and at one point, we had a long-distance relationship for about eight months.
JW: How did you handle that?
CG: We did the cutesy letter-writing back and forth thing and talked on the phone every day. I still think about the situation fondly. I remember panicking when picking him up at the airport after not seeing him for months and thinking, “Is he really the same person I’ve been talking to on the phone?" I think it’s nice to miss someone when you know there’s an end to a separation period. I don’t get chances to miss him anymore because we’re often together and he plays in my band. So I wrote a song romanticizing the elements of our once long-distance relationship.
JW: And?
CG: And romanticizing about the last few moments before we dropped the “long distance” part of our relationship.
JazzWax clips: Here's Caity's Ideal (words, music and arrangement)...
Here's Caity in the studio last year singing her song, My Cardiologist...
Here's Caity scatting to Sonny Stitt's solo on Alone Together, from 1956...
And here's Caity in action at the JUNOfest Jazz Showcase...
Then I was bowled over to learn that all of the songs except two on her newly released album, Featuring, were written by Caity—words and music. And the arrangements. These aren't trite tunes about the moon or a summer breeze. They are seriously sophisticated, true jazz songs that have all the hallmarks of becoming standards. When you add her confident fluid voice, you realize that Caity's many musical talents and high taste level truly are remarkable.
To hear what I mean, let's listen to the opening track of her new album. Here's her song I Feel Foolish...
As you can hear, her trio is exceptional as well: Felix Fox-Pappas on piano, Thomas Hainbuch on bass and Jacob Wutzke on drums, with Daniel Barta on alto saxophone.
The album's guests include Kyle Pogline on trumpet; Virginia MacDonald on clarinet; Allison Au, Daniel Barta, Christine Jensen and Tymish Koznarsky on alto saxophone; Lucas Dubovik, Pat LaBarbera and Kyle Tarder-Stoll on tenor saxophone; Jocelyn Gould on guitar; and vocalist Laura Anglade added on The Feeling Is Mutual.
Here's the album's track list and soloists:
- I Feel Foolish (feat. Daniel Barta)
- Cover Up (feat. Christine Jensen)
- It Might As Well Be Spring (feat. Kyle Pogline) (Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II)
- Start Again (feat. Jocelyn Gould)
- A Moment (feat. Allison Au)
- Look the Other Way (feat. Lucas Dubovik)
- I Miss Missing You (feat. Jocelyn Gould)
- ‘Tis Autumn (feat. Pat LaBarbera) (Henry Nemo)
- My Cardiologist (feat. Kyle Tarder-Stoll)
- Ideal (feat. Virginia MacDonald)
- I Never Knew (feat. Tymish Koznarsky)
- The Feeling Is Mutual (feat. Laura Anglade)
- It’s Pronounced George (feat. Christine Jensen, Virginia MacDonald)
Recently, I caught up with Caity by email. She just finished her masters degree in May, which tells me we can now expect the full thrust of her productivity and ambitions. Stand back. She also won Canada's 2022 JUNO for best vocal album. Here's our e-conversation:
JazzWax: Where in Calgary, Alberta, did you spend your childhood?
Caity Gyorgy: I grew up in two different suburbs of Calgary. After my parents’ divorce when I was 10, my younger brother and I spent alternating weeks at the homes of my dad and mum. My maternal grandmother was born in England and moved to Canada as a child after World War II, when her dad, an Anglican minister, set up a parish in Ottawa. My maternal grandfather’s family also emigrated from England, and he was the first in his family to be born in Canada.
JW: So your last name comes from your father’s side?
CG: Yes. My paternal grandad also was the first in his family born in Canada. His family had come over in the 1930s from Hungary. They emigrated so that my great-grandfather could work in the coal mines in a Hungarian community in Alberta. My paternal grandmother’s family has been in North America for many generations. Many of her people were farmers and homesteaders, so it’s likely they came over from the U.K. with the promise of farmland and building a new life.
JW: Calgary is a big city but informed by mountains, cattle and oil. What shaped you growing up?
CG: Now that I’ve spent a lot of time in Toronto, in the eastern part of Canada, I realize how different it was to have grown up in the west. In Calgary, I often skied in the mountains and never realized how lucky I was. The biggest presence the oil industry had on my life was as a game. I’d count the number of operating pumpjacks on road trips. As for Calgary’s cattle, let’s just say I don’t eat beef in eastern Canada. It’s not the same.
JW: Did your parents’ divorce make you more introverted and more likely to explore your inner talents?
CG: Their separation was hard on me because I was old enough to know what was going on. I also knew that their parting was likely irreversible. My brother is four years younger than me, so it didn’t shape him as much. I’m lucky I had him. For many years, we were each other’s only constant as we moved from house to house each week. We’re still very close. As for turning inward, I think that happened many years later.
JW: How did you deal with the household turmoil you experienced?
CG: For over a decade, I blocked out a lot of what happened. But a few years ago, I started drawing upon those experiences to make music. My song There By the Door is dedicated to my childhood home, which was sold after my parents split up. I had never cried while writing music, but I cried when I composed that one.
JW: You took piano lessons when you were 9 or 10. Did you take voice lessons as well?
CG: I took piano lessons, but I didn’t take them seriously. I took piano and voice from the same teacher, dividing my 60-minute lesson in half. Soon, singing became such a passion that it began chewing into my piano time. My earliest experience with jazz was probably listening to the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s Charlie Brown Christmas album every year. It was and still is one of my favorite records. My dad would play it as soon as December 1st rolled around.
JW: How did you come to jazz?
CG: When I was 17. I started dating a jazz drummer and wanted to have more to talk about on our dates. So I took him to my favorite record store on one of our first dates. While I was looking through the soul section and running my fingers though albums by Otis Redding, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Etta James and Sam Cooke, he was digging through the jazz section. He picked out a reissue of Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool and urged me to buy it.
JW: Did you?
CG: The 180-gram record was $45, which was a lot for a 17-year-old high school student who worked part time for minimum wage at a home decor store. But I did. I went home, listened and didn’t understand a single thing about it. Now, of course, the album is one of my favorites. As for jazz vocalists, I was introduced to the form at a Starbucks, thanks to a compilation that included Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, and Abbey Lincoln. I’ve loved the music ever since.
JW: And the jazz drummer?
CG: I’m still dating him.
JW: Were your teenage years in high school tough?
CG: My high school experience was actually pretty wonderful. I think within my circles, I was fairly popular, so high school wasn’t oppressive. I took a lot of choir classes. Each week, I had around 10½ hours of choir rehearsal and three hours of music theory. I was in the chamber choir, concert choir and vocal jazz choir. I also really enjoyed my other courses. Chemistry and math were highlights.
JW: When did your jazz vocal conversion take place?
CG: During my last year of high school. During that year, I bought two vocal “real" books and started learning the repertoire from A to Z. I was listening to a lot of singers, going down YouTube “rabbit holes,” memorizing Ella and Sarah scat solos, and trying a bit of scatting myself. I had also started going to jams and getting to know people in my local jazz scene. In my last year of high school, I began to focus on building my repertoire and gigging. I was also preparing to attend college in Toronto.
JW: Where did you attend college?
CG: At Humber College. It was an incredible experience for me. Humber gave me the tools and experience I needed to become a professional. I took arranging courses in my third and fourth year and I tried to arrange on my own using my ears and a keyboard. I was lucky to have great professors who gave helpful feedback. I studied small-ensemble arranging with Andy Ballantyne and large-ensemble arranging with John McLeod. Now, when I arrange my own music, I usually hear the arrangement as I write my songs and use the piano to help me get my ideas out. However, this can be a bit tricky because my ears are lightyears ahead of my piano chops.
JW: Is this how it has worked for all of your songs?
CG: Yes, almost every one of them has been written in one sitting and in less than 20 minutes. When inspiration strikes, it really strikes me hard. I like to utilize certain tools like the Voice Memo feature on my phone, so that if I’m out and about and I have an idea, I can quickly sing it into my phone and pick up on it later when I have a piano in front of me. I also use the Notes app on my iPhone to write down certain words or phrases that intrigue me or a concept to expand upon later. I love writing. I wish I had more time to devote to it. I also need to work on my piano skills so that I’ll have an easier time taking my music where I want it to go. I can hear what I want to do, but finding the right voicing is challenging.
JW: Regrets?
CG: Yeah, maybe I should have been more strict about devoting the full 30 minutes to the piano during my lessons. Ha!
JW: Which composers have been most influential in terms of your songwriting?
CG: By the time I arrived at Humber College, I had learned over 200 standards. To this day, I keep listening and adding to that number. I am such a fan of the lyricism of Dorothy Fields. I find her writing to be very clever. She favors interesting and intriguing rhymes, witty subject matter, sarcasm, a deep understanding of emotion and a ridiculously accurate way of putting it all to pen. I love the compositions of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and Richard Rodgers. I think my obsession with learning standards helped me write my own songs, sometimes very late at night. The construction of standards rubs off. I’m a night owl, and my most productive hours are between 7 and 11:30 p.m., sometimes extending to 2 a.m.
JW: Vocalese seems to come naturally to you. You’re very loose and free and have a true understanding of the genre. What’s the toughest part about singing fast-paced story songs?
CG: I think vocalese might come naturally to me because of the hours I’ve spent transcribing and learning the language of the music. I’ve lifted hundreds of instrumental solos, which have given me a greater understanding of harmony, melody and rhythm. Once I have my story, I try to tell it using notes that someone like Sonny Stitt or Clifford Brown would have used. For me, writing a vocalese is a lot easier than writing a tune because the vocalese doesn’t necessarily have to follow the same rhythm and melody in each section of the song. There’s so much freedom.
JW: You went on to complete a masters at McGill University, yes?
CG: Yes, I finished in May. This is the first time in my life that I haven’t been in school and I love it. I’ve been focusing a lot on releasing my new album, Featuring, recording other albums, and writing and arranging for upcoming shows and projects. I'm devoting so much of my time to developing myself as an artist, musician, composer, arranger and lyricist. I feel very lucky to be living my life this way.
JW: Explain your new album’s title. Why Featuring?
CG: I chose the title because each track on the album features a special guest soloist. I was very fortunate to be able to include so many wonderful musicians on this project. These people are friends, mentors and teachers. I’m a huge fan of every one of them.
JW: Tell me about them.
CG: Most I met in Toronto, but a couple I met in Montreal. I was fortunate to study with Christine Jensen while at McGill in Montreal and she helped me a lot through the process of creating the album. I also was fortunate to be taught by Pat LaBarbera while at Humber. I was in his ensemble, one of the best groups to be a part of. I loved the repertoire and I appreciated how generous Pat was and still is with his knowledge of the music. I feel privileged to have gotten to hear stories about some of the musicians he worked with, or some of the venues and situations he played in. It was incredibly inspirational.
JW: And the others?
CG: Many of the others like Virginia MacDonald, Allison Au, and Jocelyn Gould I met at Humber. Allison went to Humber so I had worked with her in bands led by others at Humber. Virginia was at Humber while I was there but I didn’t really get to know her very well until we were in Pat’s ensemble. Jocelyn started teaching at Humber when I was in my fourth year. I reached out to her to do some recording and playing.
JW: Where did you meet the others?
CG: With Kyle Tarder-Stoll, Kyle Pogline, Tymish Koznarsky, Lucas Dubovik, Daniel Barta, Thomas Hainbuch, and Felix Fox-Pappas, I met them all in college and I consider them all great friends. I first met my friend Laura Anglade online during the pandemic. We did a virtual collaboration. She's amazing and inspiring. Jacob Wutzke is the drummer, and I’ve known him for more than 7 years. We met in Calgary.
JW: Which song on the new album is most personal?
CG: I Miss Missing You. I don’t tend to open up about specific personal topics in my writing. I try to write more generally so that others may relate. But I Miss Missing You is about one specific person. I’ve been in a long-term relationship for over seven years and at one point, we had a long-distance relationship for about eight months.
JW: How did you handle that?
CG: We did the cutesy letter-writing back and forth thing and talked on the phone every day. I still think about the situation fondly. I remember panicking when picking him up at the airport after not seeing him for months and thinking, “Is he really the same person I’ve been talking to on the phone?" I think it’s nice to miss someone when you know there’s an end to a separation period. I don’t get chances to miss him anymore because we’re often together and he plays in my band. So I wrote a song romanticizing the elements of our once long-distance relationship.
JW: And?
CG: And romanticizing about the last few moments before we dropped the “long distance” part of our relationship.
JazzWax clips: Here's Caity's Ideal (words, music and arrangement)...
Here's Caity in the studio last year singing her song, My Cardiologist...
Here's Caity scatting to Sonny Stitt's solo on Alone Together, from 1956...
And here's Caity in action at the JUNOfest Jazz Showcase...
This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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