Rating:
Genre:
Vocal Music
Release Date: 08/19/2008
The central challenge for traditional pop singers with jazz leanings since at least 1970 (and arguably since 1950) has concerned repertoire; that is, given that no one is writing the kind of songs that made up the Great American Songbook of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s anymore, and given that
Frank Sinatra and
Ella Fitzgerald have thoroughly raided those for definitive interpretations, what is there left to sing? Different singers have addressed the problem in different ways, but none may have ignored it quite as much as
Kate McGarry, for whom
If Less Is More...Nothing Is Everything is her fifth album.
McGarry represents a generation that grew up listening to
Joni Mitchell and
Crosby, Stills & Nash for its sophisticated pop songcraft, and while she clearly presents herself as a jazz-influenced pop vocalist in the cabaret tradition, she is at least as sympathetic to the post-
Bob Dylan singer/songwriter era as she is to the era of the Great American Songbook. The result, for her, is a sort of hybrid of the two. She leads off this album, for example, with
Irving Berlin's
"Let's Face the Music and Dance," but
Fred Astaire would barely recognize it in this rendition, while
Rickie Lee Jones might be tempted to sue for the crime of impersonation. The song is taken at a languid tempo, and
McGarry slips and slurs her way through the song just like
Jones did on so many of her performances of the late '70s and early '80s. (Indeed,
Jones turns out to be the primary vocal influence on
McGarry throughout the album. If
"I Carry Your Heart" were added to a reissue of
Jones' 1981 album,
Pirates, with the claim that it was a previously unreleased track from its recording sessions, few would notice anything amiss.)
"You're My Thrill," which follows, is
McGarry's real claim to jazz legitimacy, a song associated with
Billie Holiday that she sings with a sense of
Sarah Vaughan's timing and phrasing as well as
Ella Fitzgerald's bubbly intonation, plus a dab of
Diane Schuur.
McGarry's choice of covering
the Cars'
"Just What I Needed" is the second riskiest repertoire decision here, after
Dylan's
"The Times They Are A-Changin'," but unlike that song, it doesn't quite work. Again, the
Rickie Lee Jones influence is prominent, as the arrangement slows the tempo to a crawl so that
McGarry can mull over lyrics like "It's not the perfume that you wear," perhaps giving the song a gay connotation, or at least an unusual one. More successful is a reading of
Crosby, Stills & Nash's
"You Don't Have to Cry," on which
McGarry joins with singers
Jo Lawry and
Peter Eldridge for a very different vocal trio performance over a percussion arrangement. And the samba numbers,
"Caminhos Cruzados" and
"Flor de Lis," provide a welcome change of pace.
McGarry is powerfully assisted by her backup band, particularly keyboard player
Gary Versace, whose use of the organ provides surprising textures to some of the arrangements.
McGarry doesn't entirely solve the repertoire problem on
If Less Is More...Nothing Is Everything by pretending it doesn't exist. But she successfully pays tribute to the varied music she loves and manages some unexpected musical marriages in the process.
~William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
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