Take Five with Singer-Songwriter Rachelle Garniez

Meet Rachelle Garniez

Rachelle Garniez is a songwriter, singer, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Born and raised on New York City's 1970s culturally diverse Upper West Side by an American classical pianist and a European professor of French existentialist literature, Rachelle was exposed to rich and multi-layered influences, from utopian collective free-schooling and Austrian Expressionism to roller disco and congueros in Central Park.

In 1982, at age 17, she spent a year making her way around Europe. She picked up a guitar, playing folk songs on the streets of Venice and Avignon, then on a beach in the south of Spain -adopted by the local Gypsy flamenco singing champion. Returning to New York, Rachelle eventually settled in the East Village. She was hijacked by an accordion, an instrument that served to connect her experiences with an infinitely expanding motherlode of multi-cultural music.

From her first adventures as a street musician and a fixture in the 80s New York boho scene, Rachelle went on to form the band The Fortunate Few, and has since released seven acclaimed albums under her own name. Rachelle's songs have been performed and recorded by jazz artist Catherine Russell, pop singer Karen Elson, and Ingrid Lucia (The Flying Neutrinos). Rachelle has performed and collaborated with Jack White, Suzzy Roche, Thomas Dolby's TED House Band, Sven Ratzke, Palmyra Delran, beloved bar band Mumbo Gumbo, roots-world ensemble Hazmat Modine, and sonic sorcerer Sxip Shirey. Together with Amanda Homi and other artists, she is a member of VickiKristinaBarcelona (aka VKB), remaking the Tom Waits catalog in three-part harmony and inventive instrumentation.

Instruments

Voice, accordion, piano, claviola, guitar, bass ukulele, kazoo, assorted bells and whistles.

Teachers and/or influences?

My mother is a classical pianist and a music educator with a focus on experiential listening. I was raised in an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side in the '70s inadvertently absorbing other people's piano lessons, vocal ensemble workshops, and chamber music rehearsals. Not being interested in studying classical music, I was indirectly but not formally educated. I had the good fortune to work with master voice teacher Barbara Maier Gustern who was senselessly tragically murdered, a huge loss to the music community of New York City. The influence pool is deep and wide. 1970's radio, Stravinsky, the Sex Pistols, Brecht/Weill, all kinds of rock and all kinds of music from around the world.

I knew I wanted to be a musician when...

At the age of 17 I spent some time wandering around, began busking on the street in Venice, Italy and eventually ended up in the south of Spain with a beater guitar hanging out on a beach for a few weeks with a group of Roma musicians. Morocco was visible in the distance, one day a crate of hashish washed up on the shore.

The leader of the group was a Flamenco singer and at the time there were competitions all over the region. Singers would perform solo a cappella under the stars in small town squares, it was stunning. The path became clear. I came home and gave away all my records, feeling that music had to be heard live in order to be real.

Your sound and approach to music.

I'm a trickster and a contrarian. I love tenderness, brutality, humor, color and simplicity. I have an equal affinity for groove and for fluid tempos. There is beauty to be found in most mistakes. I love singing in harmony and not being able to tell who is singing what note even whilst singing it.

Your teaching approach

I've done some performance coaching with singers, working on locating and embodying their choices of songs; finding their best keys, experimenting with emotional motivations and tones, having them create a back story, whether it be fact or fiction. Digging deep and playing with expression, reaching in to oneself makes it possible to reach out to the audience.

Your dream band

I would love to work with violinist and composer Meg Okura. She's fearless.

Road story

Some years back, touring with bassist Tim Luntzel, we had a gig on the MS Stubnitz in Hamburg, a massive Russian fishing boat converted into a venue. When we got to soundcheck, there was a pair of boxing gloves hanging on the mic stand. I wore one on my right hand to play an accordion solo. The song was "Just Because You Can," written for the fabulous Catherine Russell. There's a video on YouTube somewhere. https://youtu.be/bmmvewEeRdM

Favorite venue

Pangea is an intimate and lovely jewel of a supper club in the East Village neighborhood of NYC. It's been there for 30 years. It's a real haven for artists, it's rare these days for performers to be treated with such respect and offered truly unconditional support. Years ago, for many years I had a monthly residency at Barbès in Brooklyn. It was the perfect place to try out new songs and experiment with all kinds of musical risks -plus an incentive for writing new songs to keep things fresh and sparkly.

Your favorite recording in your discography and why?

Lately I'm especially fond of my second record, 'Crazy Blood.' It's a maximalist production, a assortment of original songs featuring horn sections, all kinds of keyboards, electric guitars, crowds of friends singing background vocals, yodeling, bell ringing and all kinds of sonic psychedelic shenanigans. The album was recorded by Joe Johnson at Studio 900 in NYC and mixed by Martin Bisi.

Did you know...

I'm obsessed with sauerkraut.

The first jazz album I bought was:

I saved up babysitting money and ordered a triple album by The Andrews Sisters -as advertised on television -when I was 10 or 11 years old.

Music you are listening to now

Cécile McLorin Salvant is a superhero. If I were a teen, Sofia Isella would be my idol.

Desert Island picks

In all seriousness, I'd be happy listening to insects, frogs, waves, and wind.

What are some of the essential requirements to keep jazz alive and growing?

Inclusivity, folding in other genres, collaboration with other art forms, such as dance, theater, visual creations.

What is in the near future?

Just recently I released an album called >Born In TimeBob Dylan with an original thrown in. It was a joy to record with wonderful musicians: pianist Jon Cowherd, bassist Paul Nowinski, drummer Charley Drayton, and trumpet player John Sneider.

Since 2016, I've been putting together "Farewell Party" concerts at the end of December, saluting artists that passed away that past year. Last year's program included Connie Francis, Ozzy Osbourne, Sheila Jordan, Brian Wilson, Flaco Jimenez, Sly Stone, and Jill Sobule, among others. It's always poignant and hilarious, and organically catches whatever zeitgeist happens to be floating around. I'd like to tour with that show.

Also, along with fellow songwriters Amanda Homi and Kirsten Thien, I'm a member of a trio called Vicki Kristina Barcelona, also known as VKB Band. Our main repertoire consists of Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan songs, redecorated with a focus on three-part harmony singing and unexpected instrumentation. We're on the move quite a bit in Europe and are always making new recordings and videos.

What is your greatest fear when you perform?

I'm terrified of thinking -it's the lethal enemy of flow!

What song would you like played at your funeral?

A song I wrote called "Flat Black." I believe it's important to put the F-U-N back in FUNERAL. Guess I'll have to decide who I'd like to sing it and somehow get them to hold an unspecified date.

By Day

I don't have a day job per se -other than the current condition of relentlessly self promoting and creating constant content on social media. I would fire myself if I could.

If I weren't a jazz musician, I would be a:

To begin with, I don't consider myself a jazz musician, having been handcuffed and carted away by the Jazz Police upon more than one occasion. In all seriousness, though -marine biologist, sanitation worker, I did consider studying to be a therapist for young children. In my most unrealistic dreams, I would have been a boxer.

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

I'm fond of fictional characters. But would love to have dinner with Irving Berlin. He revolutionized the industry of popular music, plus he worked as a singing waiter, plus he wrote and wrote and wrote so many songs that will forever stand the test of time.

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

Drifting in a boat on Brewer's Bay, in Tortola BVI, listening to the orchestral ethereal songs of humpback whales. Paul Knapp Jr, a dear friend, lowers a hydrophone mic into the water sets up little speakers on board. On this particular occasion, the sun was setting and a rainbow appeared at the same moment a large whale breached above the water. I urge everyone to go whale listening with Paul. These days he's based on the island of Culebra in Puerto Rico.

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

"The Mooche" by Duke Ellington Orchestra.

To pair with our series' Jazz Uncorked/Jazz & Juice, what's your favorite wine, bourbon or adult beverage?

Any kind of grandma's homemade moonshine from anywhere in the world where grandmas make that kind of thing. Slivovitz, ron caña, that stuff is the real deal medicine.