Singer Karen Mack’s Fresh Sound Mixes the Work of Traditional Songbook Composers and Contemporary Voices

Karen Mack‘Catch & Keep’KarenM MusicOther than a “bonus track,” the final song on singer Karen Mack’s new album, “Catch & Keep,” is “I Wanna Get Married” by Nellie McCay, who introduced it on her 2004 album “Get Away From Me.” For 20 years, the song has always been something of a cypher to me: I’m never quite sure exactly what it means. There’s no doubt that it’s intentionally funny in an ironic kind of a way; the singer tells us she wants nothing more out of life than to have a husband and a family, and to underscore the point there are references to pop culture signposts from eras before Ms. McKay was born, such as 100-year-old songs. Interestingly, 60 years earlier there was another song called “I Wanna Get Married,” from one of the most successful musicals of the wartime era, “Follow the Girls,” which ran on Broadway between 1944 and 1946. That song also is filled with ironic humor, and there was a considerable sexuality to it — so much so that it was banned by certain platforms; Pearl Bailey later included it on a 1959 album called “For Adults Only.” The two songs express ideas from the perspectives of two very different generations.Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Ms. Mack chose to launch her album at Birdland on Women’s Equality Day. She gets everything there is to be gotten out of the wise-beyond-her-years text: Ms. McKay was only 22 when she wrote it. Ms. Mack sings of her desire to “pack cute little lunches / for my Brady Bunches / and read Danielle Steele.” One of the more salient points regarding “Catch & Keep” is Ms. Mack’s adroit balancing between traditional songbook composers, such as Jimmy Van Heusen (“Imagination”) and Harry Warren (“This Is Always”), and jazz-centric singer-songwriters of at least a slightly more recent vintage, like Bob Dorough (“Nothing Like You”) and Dave Frishberg (“Our Love Rolls On”). With regard to the latter, Ms. Mack is essentially positioning Nellie McKay as a contemporary counterpart to Dorough and Frishberg even though the two men are deceased; it’s a comparison that is suitably flattering to all three of them. Then there are newer songs by living and currently active writers, including the singer herself as well as her musical director, pianist Peter Eldridge. Ms. Mack sings them all with a small but expressive and sweet voice that may remind some of Blossom Dearie, interspersed with chatty patter breaks that bring to mind Natalie Douglas. Between her unique sound and the very original approach of Mr. Eldridge, as well as a varied and well thought out program, this is a very fresh-sounding project. The presence of Darmon Meador, one of Mr. Eldridge’s fellow singers in the New York Voices who here is on saxophone — he does both equally well — further gives the tracks he plays on a sound all their own.Of the standards, “This Is Always” opens with the verse in the manner of Chet Baker’s 1955 version with strings, which she intones with a pleading sincerity. “Imagination” has a vaguely southern hemisphere kind of groove that sounds equidistant to both Brazil and the Caribbean — I had to listen for a while before I recognized it as a song I’ve heard about a thousand times.One surprise is a vintage World War II riff number called “Come To Baby, Do,” recorded by many bands and singers in the mid-’40s but rarely heard since. At Birdland she also sang “Fun Life” as a romping, charming duet with Mr. Eldridge; this song has barely been heard since the original cast recording of “The Nervous Set” (1959) — virtually the only beatnik Broadway musical (‘Shakespeare was a hack / So we read Kerouac”). I only wish it was on her album.Of the new and less familiar songs, there’s David Cantor’s “I’m So Repentant,” which also has a West Indian kind of a stop-and-start beat — the vibe is similar to “An Occasional Man” — and an engagingly coy performance from Ms. Mack. The Italian singer-songwriter Chiara Civello supplied “Here Is Everything,” on which guitarist Jesse Lewis provides a subtle, semi-neapolitan background, and in which Mr. Eldridge sings in harmony with Ms. Mack. That “bonus” track, Betty Bryant’s “It’s Hard to Say Goodbye,” is a witty list number in a swinging 3/4, in the same groove as “Better Than Anything,” done in collaboration with singer and pianist Elliot Roth. As noted, Peter Eldridge and Darmon Meader are longtime members of the New York Voices, while Ms. Mack is a founding member of the very entertaining female quartet collective Those Girls, which will perform as part of the Mabel Mercer Foundation annual cabaret convention next week.Which brings us back to “I Wanna Get Married,” the official last track on “Catch & Keep.” As Ms. Mack sings it, we never know if the singer herself is being sarcastic or sincere — a character like those we see in Irving Berlin’s “Homework” in “Miss Liberty” and Frank Loesser’s “Happy to Keep his Dinner Warm” in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” Therein lies the mystery and also the fun. Perhaps, as an old straight guy, I shouldn’t even be pondering such things.

Singer Karen Mack’s Fresh Sound Mixes the Work of Traditional Songbook Composers and Contemporary Voices

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