SPOLETO BUZZ BLOG

Live Review
By T. Ballard Lesemann

Kate McGarry
Wachovia Jazz at The Cistern
Fir. May 27

Under the blue and red lit moss hanging from the oaks in the College of Charleston’s beautiful Cistern courtyard, the highly anticipated Wachovia Jazz series opened with grace and groove as Massachusetts-born jazz vocalist Kate McGarry and her quartet performed a smooth set.

Mild breezy weather, great sound, three-dollar Heinekens and Cabernet at the back table, a polite audience of around 800 … the setting couldn’t have been nicer for Spoleto jazz.

Things started just a few minutes past nine as Wachovia Jazz director Michael Grofsorean’s elegant introduction brought McGarry — dressed in red and all smiles — to the stage alongside electric guitarist Steve Cardenas, acoustic bassist Sean Smith, husbands and nylon-string guitarist Keith Granz, and newly-acquired drummer Ted Poor.

They opened with a light but grooving rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Chelsea Morning” and moved through a few slow-burning numbers off of McGarry’s latest album, Mercy Streets. Right off the bat, one could notice the on-stage romantic energy between McGarry and Granz, who kept giving his wife the hairy eyeball as he nodded and bobbed through each number. The couple resembled gypsies in love on the latin-tinged “What Lola Want.” Throughout the set, McGarry scatted note-for-note with Granz’s peppery guitar runs.

Highlights of evening included a slinky duo version of “It Had to Be You” between McGarry and Granz, several moments during tunes where the quartet stretched out and allowed an occasional guitar and bass solo— particularly the melodic and rhythmic interaction between Cardenas and Granz’s guitars — and a sweetly personal moment when McGarry told her audience about her ailing parents who couldn’t make it to the show: she actually phoned them on her cell phone, conducted a big “hello” from the crowd, placed the phone on her music stand, and sang a beautiful rendition of a traditional Irish folk song titled “Peggy Gordon” _ practically a cappla, save for the one-chord box according that droned quietly beneath the melody.

McGarry’s smooth and dynamic singing style was certainly at the forefront, as the band worked through the careful arrangements. Overall, the group’s sound was a bit light and drifty, lilting and wandering at moments. Fortunately, drummer Ted Poor (who was “robbed from the cradle and put to work,” according to McGarry), raised the level of the musical situation with his impressively delicate brushwork and kick drum accents, all dynamic, rhythmically powerful, and as musical as anything coming off the vocal mic.