Nora McCarthy: Bio

NORA McCARTHY - Vocal Artist, Composer, Poet, Lyricist, Founder of the Zen of Singing

NORA Mc CARTHY
Singer, Vocal Improviser, Composer, Lyricist, Poet, Actor

Vocal artist, composer, poet, Nora McCarthy is a prominent member of the New York Jazz Community. She and her various groups work at the top jazz venues in New York and elsewhere in the world. "McCarthy's musical roots are vast and varied, crossing cultures and genres - from the Great American song book to contemporary modern jazz and bebop, early rhythm and blues, funk music, Hawaiian and Brazilian music and in recent years she's embraced - and been embraced by "the avant garde." Florence Wetzel, All About Jazz, 8/2005.

Currently, Nora leads and co-leads several groups: The Nora McCarthy Qu 'ART' et; The ConceptualMotion 20-piece Orchestra; A Small Dream In Red - Voice and Saxophone Duo; and, The ACE (Afro-Caribbean-Experimental) Collective with alto saxophonist, Jorge Sylvester.

NEW RELEASE NEWS:

Nora’s latest offering, Circle Completing is a collection of some treasured jazz standards; a gutsy blues, “Little Red Rooster”, performed by the legendary Sam Cooke and later by the Rolling Stones; a beautiful rendition of, “To Be With You”, made famous by singer Jimmy Sabater, formerly with the Joe Cuba Sextet (Gilberto Miguel Calderon), in 1957; three originals penned by McCarthy: “In The Early Morning Light”, a free improvised poetry piece; “Faith In Time”, a tribute to the great jazz vocal legend Jimmy Scott; and, “Life Is A Song To Sing”, McCarthy's inspiring and uplifting anthem. A special treat is the unexpected, “Ke Kali Nei Au...The Hawaiian Wedding Song”, sung with a prayer-like reverence it is an homage to Nora’s three Hawaiian sons and her love of the music of Hawaii. Nora is accompanied on this CD by the talented pianist, composer, arranger John di Martino (http://www.johndimartino.com) who has performed and recorded with such notables as Kenny Burrell, Pat Martino, James Moody and Eddie Gomez. Mr. di Martino is a sought after musical director and has accompanied Jon Hendricks, Diane Schuur and the late Billy Eckstine. Circle Completing is sung in the rich tradition reminiscent of the great balladeers from the early Jazz and Rhythm& Blues era that McCarthy grew up listening to fused with a modern approach and an eye to the future reflecting Nora’s current involvement and intrigue with the creative and free music art forms giving Circle Completing a contemporary feel. It is the progeny of that union, Nora’s original compositions, that gives Circle Completing its distinct voice and what makes her a unique and dynamic vocal artist in the world of jazz and creative music today.

OTHER RELEASES:

In 1998, Nora released her first CD, red&blue, with John diMartino - piano, Essiet Okon Essiet - bass, Alvester Garnett- drums, Mike Lee - tenor saxophone, and Sato Takeishi - percussion. red&blue is a mixture of McCarthy's original compositions (7 out of 9) and two standards, all of which are written and arranged in the post-bop tradition of the early Blue Note recordings. This timeless CD has received wonderful reviews and is still gaining recognition around the world, most recently in Como, Italy where she is a featured artist in the July/August 2008 issue of The Jazz Magazine and her composition “My Dream” was included on the accompanying compilation disc alongside jazz luminaries Ahmad Jamaal and Phil Woods among other notables.

In 2005 Nora released, A Small Dream In Red (Sundown), named after master painter Wassily Kandinsky's masterpiece, Kleiner en Rot (Small Dream In Red). This adventurous CD is a live recording of the voice and saxophone duo's 2003 concert at Cleveland State University's Drinko Hall and beautifully demonstrates the unique symbiosis between the two artists as well as Nora's virtuosity as a musician of the highest order and showcases her ability to "play with the known and the unknown elements of jazz." Florence Wetzel, All About Jazz New York. McCarthy and Sylvester have written many compositions for this project individually and together interpreting some of Kandinsky’s paintings that deal with music and composition. They also perform their other original compositions as well as deconstructions of familiar standards like My Romance and Afro Blue and other choice songs that transcend categories and genres. “…McCarthy's interpretation of ‘My Romance’ is filled with new ideas that only use the original Rodgers & Hart melody as an occasional guidepost.” Cadence Magazine For Creative and Improvised Music, 2/05

HIGHLIGHTS:

In the Spring of 2007 A Small Dream In Red, performed a series of workshops and concerts in Podgorica, Montenegro to an enthusiastic audience filled-to-capacity concert hall as well as an appearance on the television show Good Morning Montenegro. This unique duo is said to be the only one of its kind in the world and McCarthy has been acclaimed by her fellow musicians and some critics as the greatest atonal singer in the world with her ability to maneuver with ease throughout all the keys, never losing sight of the tonal center in perfect pitch and with an impeccable sense of timing!

In the recent past, Nora performed extensively in duo with renowned bassist Juini Booth who worked with many luminaries from Art Blakey to Sun Ra to McCoy Tyner to name a few and she now carries on the bass and voice tradition with the remarkable Dominic Duval who is well know for his work with Cecil Taylor among others and his own group Trio X with Joe McPhee and Jay Rosen. In March, 2000, Nora returned to her early musical roots and toured briefly with the rhythm and blues legend Wilson Pickett as a member of his band the Midnight Movers. Also in 2000, Nora performed weekly with trombonist Kuumba Frank Lacy's Vibe Tribe at the Jazz Gallery in New York. Around this time, Nora began a musical collaboration with alto-saxophonist, composer, conductor Jorge Sylvester and became the featured vocalist in his and tenor saxophonist Benny Russell's Next Legacy Jazz Orchestra - a big band of incredible magnitude that was originally founded by tenor saxophonist, David Murray. With this orchestra, Nora had the honor of performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and the Albany Jazz Festival before going on to establish her own 20-piece orchestra with Jorge Sylvester, The ConceptualMotion Orchestra.

In June, 2005, The ConceptualMotion Orchestra (CMO)opened the highly acclaimed avant-garde Vision Festival X at the Angel Orensanz Center in the East Village, NYC. The orchestra provides an excellent platform for McCarthy to present her ever increasing body of compositions and poetry which conveys a spiritually positive and uplifting message to the world. Conducted and arranged by Sylvester, CMO is quickly gaining recognition as “one of the freshest and inspiring large ensembles to emerge on the creative music scene in quite some time.”..Gary Giddins, The Village Voice, 2002

Through her vast experience in the jazz and creative music field, Nora has developed a unique approach to teaching voice and improvisation and is founder of "The Zen Of Singing...The Spiritual Path To Finding Your Voice" ™ and currently teaches privately, conducts workshops and on-line consultation. (www.thezenofsinging.com)

CURRENT NEWS – MAIN STREET MUSIC MISSION:

On September 30, 2008, the Main Street Music Mission, a performance loft space in downtown Peekskill, New York founded by McCarthy will launch a series of creative music performances, poetry and educational clinics and workshops featuring McCarthy’s various projects as well as those of other musical artists, vocalists and poets. Its objective is to bring cultural and creatively diverse music and educational programming to the community with a focus on Jazz, Afro-Caribbean, and the Avant Garde and New Music Art forms including Spoken Word.

POETRY:

Over the years, her ever increasing need to expand her own musical consciousness and convey a spiritual awareness through the music has been the main focus of her creative projects and poetry. Nora has penned lyrics to several jazz standards as well as for other musicians on the local scene and she is becoming known not only as a wonderful lyricist but also as an outstanding poet. Nora is a featured poet and the assistant to Master Conductor, Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris' A Chorus of Poets.

In April, 2008, Nora was delighted to be asked to perform at Flushing Town Hall’s first Jazz & Poetry Marathon, “Other Worlds, Other Words” alongside several outstanding artists from the world of jazz and literature, i.e. Julio Marzan, Michael Mossman Quartet, The Nat Jones Quartet, Ray Ramirez, The Asian Poets Collaborative, and the Poets Circle from New York’s five boroughs, which included Mireya Perez, Madeline Artenberg, Berty Barranco, Mark Blickley and Iris Schwarz.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM:

“…A singer, bandleader, gifted composer, lyricist, improviser and poet, McCarthy is a consummate musician and artist. Hers is an instrument that doesn't subscribe to cliché. Her seasoned virtuosity and articulation reflect the years she has spent in developing her beautifully distinctive style. As an innovator and interpreter of the lyric, her voice is wrought with emotion. Her vast repertoire and innate sense of harmony combined with her understanding of sound, abstract form and design makes her a leader in vocal improvisation today. John Earl Powell

"...Nora's vocal identity, aside from a basic jazz orientation, defies classification, and makes spare use of reflexive stylistic mannerisms. In the placement of her voice, Nora can evoke the power of a Malian Diva's fearless candor, or perhaps a Corsican Voceratrice's call to invisible worlds in the language of dreams, or the earthiness of an early blues singer's unvarnished autobiographical witness. She has been attentive to the fluid articulation, phrasing and timbre of the jazz trumpet, the instrument that most clearly has influenced her vocal development. Her shaping of pitch often foregoes the fluid note-bending of the jazz singer in favor of the full press of a sculptor's touch against viscous clay." Ramsey Ameen, former violinist with Cecil Taylor’s Unit and 3 Phasis, mathematician and scholar. A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine, 2005.

PROJECTS

The Nora McCarthy Qu'ART'et - in the tradition of classical jazz at it's core, with an essence of modernity interlaced with original compositions, free improvisations, poetry, spiced with rhythms, imbued with passion, emotion and spirit uniquely arranged for an unforgettable musical experience. Pablo Vergara - piano, Jeffrey Carney - Bass, Gene Jackson, drums.

red&blue

A quartet that was headed by Nora McCarthy in 1996 that resulted in a CD of the same name, red&blue. It was McCarthy’s first self-produced project and includes the artistry of: pianist, John di Martino; bassist, Essiet Okon Essiet; drummer, Alvester Garnett; tenor saxophonist, Mike Lee, and percussionist, Sato Takeishi. The CD of predominately original music was recorded in 1996 and has had limited distribution. It can be purchased at Tower Records, Lincoln Center, NYC and at CD Baby.
(See reviews.)

THE ACE COLLECTIVE (AFRO-CARIBBEAN-EXPERIMENTAL)

The ACE (Afro-Caribbean-Experimental) Collective, co-led by Nora McCarthy and alto saxophonist-composer Jorge Sylvester, is an adaptation of The ACE Trio, “In The Ear of The Beholder” (Jazz Magnet Records, 2001), a concept created by saxophonist/composer/arranger Jorge Sylvester, that combines the use of various textures within the Afro-Caribbean idiom.

The group features: Jorge Sylvester - alto saxophone and compositions; Donald Nicks - electric bass; Dafnis Prieto - drums, and Nora McCarthy - voice, compositions and poetry. The ACE Collective debuted at the Blue Note, NYC in July of 2003 and recently appeared at Satalla, The Temple of World Music.

The compositions and arrangements are written specifically for saxophone, voice, electric bass and drums and include experimentation with other textures. Some of McCarthy's compositions were adapted to this instrumentation. The similarity in sound and spirit between Sylvester’s alto and McCarthy’s voice makes for an intriguingly intuitive interplay and exchange of ideas and sounds within the compositions that demonstrates the endless capabilities and versatility of the human voice.

Performing from a rhythmically global perspective the music is a collage of original compositions, poetry and world influenced soul, funk and folk music.

The ACE Collective's unique compositional approach is on the forefront of today's musical scene reaching into the future, exploring new sounds and concepts and creating new music in the African Caribbean tradition.

A SMALL DREAM IN RED
AN EXPRESSIONIST AVANT GARD VOICE AND ALTO SAXOPHONE DUET
The Next Level in Aural Stimulation

Nora McCarthy – Voice and Compositions
Jorge Sylvester – Alto Saxophone and Compositions
Fernando Natalici – Installations, Lighting and Projections

An abstract expressionist voice and alto saxophone duet named after expressionist master painter Wassily Kandinsky's masterpiece, Small Dream In Red - Kleiner Traum in Rot (1925) explores visual elements from a musical standpoint in a totally free environment. This thought provoking duo captures its listeners in an intimate exchange of total oneness of expression and complete symbiosis.

Its experimental approach to composition and improvisation parallels the concepts developed by Kandinsky. The repertoire consists of compositional interpretations of Kandinsky's paintings as well as deconstructions of contemporary jazz and classic jazz standards presented in a multi-media format that combines music, spoken word and visual art.

This project debuted in September, 2001 at the Knitting Factory Old Office and Alter Knit Theater and has since been performing in and around New York’s creative music scene having most recently performed at New School University, Cleveland State University, CBGB's, and The Gathering of the Tribes Gallery in the East Village.

CONCEPTUALMOTION
20 piece Orchestra

The ensemble is an eclectic group of 20 of New York City’s improvisers from the US and around the world who masterfully interpret the original compositions of Nora McCarthy and Jorge Sylvester.

The primary goal of the ConceptualMotion Orchestra is to bring together the free, contemporary, classic, indigenous, and new music art forms. The ultimate goal of the compositions is constructive movement, i.e. forward progression and expansion; creating works filled with the architectonic spirit that is at the center of all creative art forms.

Conducted and arranged by Jorge Sylvester, the music challenges traditional formulas that are often subscribed to by other large ensembles. The Innovative and daring concepts that drive the music utilize a full spectrum of colors, textures and movement to create a tangible image. The music is a mixture of obtuse compositional structures, open form blues and Afro-Caribbean charged rhythmic pieces within a free collective expression that includes poetry.

THE BEYOND WORDE VOICE and BASS DUO

With Maestro Dominic Duval, the music takes an intuitively simplistic approach to jazz standards, blending in a touch of the avant garde with free and experimental improvisation, visual compositions and poetry.

CIRCLE COMPLETING

NORA MCCARTHY RELEASES AN EXQUISITE DUET CD - CIRCLE COMPLETING
Scott Yanow, Author of nine jazz books including Trumpet Kings, Swing, Bebop, Jazz On Record 1917-76 and Jazz On Film

CIRCLE COMPLETING
Known as a brilliant improviser with a warm and highly expressive voice, Nora McCarthy recently released her newest recording, Circle Completing. The set of duets with pianist John DiMartino sums up Ms. McCarthy’s colorful story so far, is a tribute to the legendary singer Jimmy Scott, and is a consistently surprising look at life’s lessons. “One has to experience life before singing these types of songs,” says Nora.

Circle Completing, which is comprised of three of the singer’s originals plus six standards, is a very spontaneous set that emerged with a unified purpose. “We recorded all of the music in four hours,” remembers Nora,” and several of the songs came out of nowhere.” Starting with “Come Fly With Me,” an optimistic dream of having a perfect relationship, Circle Completing includes the soul ballad “To Be With You” (which was associated with Joe Cuba), a wistful and lyrical rendition of “Too Late Now,” “Hawaiian Wedding Song” (which looks back to the singer’s musical beginnings), a playful rendition of the blues “Little Red Rooster,” and her haunting original “In The Early Morning Light,” a spoken word piece which is about infidelity, having one’s heart broken, and dealing with new realities. On “The Shadow Of Your Smile,” a standard about lost love, she interprets the words and then creates some scatting that is heartfelt improvising which perfectly fits the song. Nora concludes the memorable set with her philosophical “Life Is A Song To Song” and her poetic tribute to Jimmy Scott, “Faith In Time (Jimmy’s Song).”

But more than the individual songs, Circle Completing is a moody suite that deals with the evolution of life, coming to a place of forgiveness, letting go, and ultimately moving on to the next level. “Every day you have to forgive yourself and everybody. One has to concentrate on compassion. Jimmy Scott is the living embodiment of that, how he suffered and yet rose above it all.” While Nora McCarthy has worked extensively in duets with bassist Juini Booth, saxophonist Jorge Sylvester and bassist Dominic Duval, her collaboration with John diMartino has its own personality. “No matter who you put John with, he sounds different than anyone else. He is extremely creative, has a great rhythmic concept, and can do it all. He knows how to be an accompanist without sacrificing his own artistic integrity. We have our own sound together.”

Nora McCarthy has thus far had a very productive and significant musical career. She grew up in Cleveland, sang Hawaiian songs professionally with her father-in-law, worked extensively in local jazz clubs, and moved to New York in 1994. A poet and a songwriter in addition to being a singer, she recorded red&blue, became part of the New York avant-garde scene without losing her roots in standards, recorded duets with Jorge Sylvester that were inspired by the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky (A Small Dream In Red), and worked with such groups as the 20-piece orchestra ConceptualMotion (which she co-leads and co-founded), Kuumba Frank Lacy’s Vibe Tribe, Butch Morris’ A Chorus Of Poets, the Next Legacy Jazz Orchestra, the ACE (Afro-Caribbean-Experimental) Collective, in addition to her own Qu’ART’et.

While Circle Completing can be considered Nora McCarthy’s most accessible recording to date due to her love for standards and the tradition, her adventurous singing, the spontaneous interplay with John diMartino, and the unpredictability of the music result in the innovative duets being full of subtle surprises.