Kate McGarry and Keith Ganz Deliver Beautifully Eclectic Music to 1905 Jazz in Portland

Keith Ganz and Kate McGarry (photo credit Ralph A. Miriello)

The gifted vocalist Kate McGarry and her guitarist husband Keith Ganz had a one-night, two-set performance at Portland's 1905 Jazz Club on August 15, 2023. The two artists reside in Durham, North Carolina so it was a treat to see them at the first set at 1905 on this leg of their west coast tour. 

McGarry is a three-time (2009,2019,2021) Grammy Nominee who has made her mark singing with elegance and superb expressivity all her own. Over the years McGarry's craft has found her performing on such revered stages as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She lights up the stage of such jazz venues as Birdland in NYC, The Velvet Note in Atlanta, hear at 1905 and after this at Sam First in Los Angeles. She has been featured at jazz festivals like the Newport Jazz Festival, Jazz Baltica, and the Berlin Jazz Fest to name a few.

Guitarist Keith Ganz is himself a talented Grammy nominee. His subtle, thoughtful fretboard work provides the perfect accompaniment and at times the timely rhythmic/harmonic inspiration to McGarry's vocal explorations. Watching these two interpret familiar and more obscure compositions becomes a rewarding journey into an artist's creative use of expression. What's so refreshing is that they are not hamstrung by a repertoire that is shackled by genre or style. 

The set opened with Joni Mitchell's "Chelsea Morning" a song from the singer's second album Mercy Streets and released in 2005. Originally, the song was made famous by Judy Collins. It was inspired by Mitchell's neighborhood in the Chelsea section of New York City and is bursting with imagery. Certainly a folk classic, McGarry's voice is the perfect instrument, clear and vibrant, with a knack for storytelling that is effervescent with child-like excitement and awe. She and Ganz don't just play it straight. The vocalist punctuates the imagery in the lyrics with her own vitality. McGarry's instrument is so flexible, so pliant that she probes limits to the music that you maybe never thought could be applied here, revitalizing it and making it her own.

The second song they performed was a campy Isham Jones & Gus Khan composition from 1924 "It Had to Be You."  McGarry can be wonderfully coquettish, animated, and expressive when it suits her, and on this one, she made the tune all her own. She is a master of using tone and phrasing to make whatever song she sings distinct.

Ganz's guitar work was precise, fluid and warm throughout. After an expressive take on Leonard Cohen's "Anthem", the two performed a song by Paul Curreri titled "God Moves on the City." Ganz used a capo to change the open stringing and his fleet fingerpicking in the higher register rang through like chimes swept by the wind.  McGarry's breathy voice whispered the lyrics like a storyline folktale direct from the Americana tradition. She has an amazing ability to draw you into the story she is telling like she is living it there before you. A transcendental treat for the entire crowd.

Keith Ganz 

These musicians have telepathic rapport and they next tackled Jerome Kern's "Nobody Else But You," which McGarry recorded on her 2014 album The Target. This shuffling tune featured a glissando of high notes from McGarry and some quick, pert lines from Ganz that allowed McGarry to skat in unison with her partner's guitar lines. There were no charts, just an embedded familiarity with each other's improvisational inclinations, and sometimes, judging by their facial expressions, they playfully surprised each other, extending the well-worn boundaries beyond what may be expected.

Ganz's composition "Snow Picnic" was originally written for one of his earlier bands. McGarry loved its pace and challenging multiple key changes and she included it in her 2005 release Mercy Streets. In the intro, McGarry traces the serpentine guitar lines with her voice. The song morphs into a Brazilian-inspired rhythm where she sings the lyrics in Portuguese. Music is an international treasure and it's all so inspiring to hear how world savvy these artists can be in their music. 

McGarry has used poems as inspiration for writing songs for them before. This night she chose one that I was not familiar with and missed the title of, but I remember her plaintive voice uttering the line with moving sincerity as she sang the lyrics facing Ganz "My dear, can I be more kind." 

Keith Ganz and Kate McGarry 

The duo changed the mood, digging into the songbook and coming up with their own vibrant take on the Duke Ellington classic from 1939 "In A Mellow Tone." McGarry's voice adapts to the feel of the music and Ganz's guitar masterfully embellishes the music with his subtly sensitive fretboard work. 

Another anthem, Bob Dylan's classic "The Times They Are A-Changin'," was brilliantly offered with McGarry's plaintive voice being paced by Ganz's rhythmic guitar work. This song still has a sustained appeal to the audience. They relate to the song's hopeful message only reinforced by a skilled interpreter like McGarry. 

The audience was filled with vocalists who came to see this master ply her trade so admirably and they requested that the two reprise her smoky take of the Neil Hefti song Girl Talk from her 2012 album of the same name.  McGarry and Ganz didn't disappoint, and even sans Gary Versace's soulful organ accompaniment, the two did a splendid job of digging deep and bringing out the blues in this classic torcher.

This is my third time seeing McGarry and Ganz live and they never fail to make a trip to see them well worth the effort. Their repertoire is impressive and as eclectic as the mind can make it. Few artists can take a song, reimagine it and astonish you with unique interpretations that are so real and inspired. If you get a chance to catch them live don't miss the opportunity.

Demonstrating the Enduring Importance of the Musical Legacy of Henry Mancini as one of the best Song writers in the last seventy years.

I have long been an admirer of the work of composer/arranger/conductor Henry Mancini. Of all the most prolific music writers for soundtracks of big-screen or television productions, Henry Mancini, and his musical work stands at the apex of that profession. I am going to try to make a case that his iconic and enduring music makes him one of the most important music writers of the last seventy years.

Enrico Nicola Mancini, was born in Ohio and raised predominantly in western Pennsylvania. He studied the piccolo from the age of eight. His first encounter with what would later become a fascination with movie music was his exposure to a Cecile B. DeMille film titled The Crusades from 1935. In 1942 he attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (Carnegie Mellon) and then Julliard in NYC. eventually studying piano, composition, and orchestration. In 1943, at the age of eighteen, Mancini enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and played with the 28th Air Force Band through the end of the war. 

After being discharged, Mancini worked with a reestablished Glenn Miller Orchestra as a pianist and arranger before he joined Universal-International's music department working on film scores. Here he began a prolific career as a major contributor to the music of over one hundred movie soundtracks. His score for The Glenn Miller Story won an Academy Award nomination.

In 1958 he became an independent composer/arranger where he scored his first television series, the producer Blake Edwards's show Peter Gunn. From there Mancini's career never looked back.

To recall some of Henry Mancini's memorable music tracks from both television and film is to appreciate just how important this man's music was to our musical heritage.  A short list of his more memorable music includes the scores of TV shows Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky. Television movies like The Thorn Birds and The Moneychangers. Television theme songs for shows like Newhart, Hotel, and Remington Steele. Film scores included Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, The Pink Panther Series, and Victoria Victoria, just a few that he did just with director Edwards. He also scored Charade, Arabesque, and Two For the Road for director Stanley Donen. This list goes on with scores for films by Martin Ritt, The Molly Maguires; Howard Hawks' Hatari, and Man's Favorite Sport? ,  Stanley Kramer's Oklahoma Crude; Vittorio de Sica's Sunflower; Arthur Hiller's Silver Streak, and a score to Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy that was ultimately not used.

Mancini's songs have become standards that retain their appeal to this day. They include Mr. Lucky, Peter Gunn, Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses, Charade, The  Pink Panther Theme, A Shot in the Dark, Two for the Road,  Theme from Hatari, Baby Elephant's Walk,  Dreamsville, and perhaps my favorite Lujan also know as The Slow Hot Wind which was originally released in the Mr. Lucky Goes Latin album from  1961. 

My Contention is that one of the true benchmarks used to judge the importance of a composer's work is to see just how many fellow musicians choose to sing and/or play that person's work. Clearly Mancini meets this benchmark.

Let's just use one of my favorite compositions from Mancini. Lujon (also recorded as Slow Hot Wind from the lyrics by Norman Gimbel), is the name of the percussive instrument used in the artist's original release. Though it was not related to anything in the show Mr. Lucky despite being part of the album Mr. Lucky Goes Latin, it did have a durable and endearing effect on the world of jazz music. Here are several different takes on this superb song. Let me know what is your favorite version.

The original from Henry Mancini :

Here is one of the definitive vocal performances of this great song by the inimitable voice of Johnny Hartman with Norman Gimbel's lyrics from his album from 1994.

Here is another version from the album Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 with Lani Hall doing her most seductive vocals on the Gimbel lyrics.

Sarah Vaughan is the kind of vocalist who could do whatever she wanted. Her voice was exquisite and she often chose songs that others could only dream of doing justice to them. See for yourself

Who better to express this song's nuanced emotionality on his solo guitar than master artist Pat Metheny from his album What's It All About from 2011. 

The Harmonica and Vibraphonist ace Hendrik Meurkens did a seductively emotional version of this song on his album Hendrik Meurken's Cobb's Pocket from 2013. The group included drumming great Jimmy Cobb, Mike LeDonne on B3 Organ, Peter Bernstein on guitar, and Meurkins on chromatic harmonica. Just Beautiful

Ted Nash is a descendant of two of Mancini's original band players.

Both his uncle saxophonist Ted and his father trombonist Dick Nash were active Hollywood studio musicians and often played in Mancini's bands. If anyone can be true to the master composer/arranger's intent then certainly Ted can do so and do so with his own unique read on the song.

Here from his Ted Nash The Mancini Project is Lujon. 

There is a terrific instrumental jazz version of the song performed by the underappreciated multi-reed player Gerry Niewood from his album Slow Hot Wind from 1975 w Bill Dobbins, piano; Gene Perla, bass; Lew Soloff, trumpet/flugelhorn; Bill Reichenbach, trombone and Gerry Niewood, Alto, Tenor, Soprano and Flute. I have it, but unfortunately, I couldn't find a clean youtube to post but trust me it's great.

If these tremendous renditions of this beautiful composition by such an esteemed and talented group of artists are not enough to make you acknowledge Henry Mancini's sustained impact on our world, maybe a few movies that have chosen to use this song in their soundtracks like Sexy Beast, W.E. and Two Lovers and this more famous one may change your mind.