And talented she
definitely is - a multi-instrumentalist and piano player with jazz chops, a
singer of pure and natural ease and a big voice, a lyricist with sarcastic wit and
strong feminist and progressive ideas, a songwriter who knows jazz, Broadway, varied
styles of pop from classic to modern, and yet isn’t averse to dropping rock and
rap into her music when it suits her. But her métier is the classic pop
vernacular where songsmiths use whatever means they choose to get their point
across - melded, of course, with her interest in jazz and pre-rock era pop
music.
After fighting her label
to release her first album a double album, she fought yet again to make the
second a double album and Sony balked – one double album that could’ve fit on a
single CD was made by the label under duress, but they weren’t about to do it
again and they dropped her, so she released it on her own label. The next time
out she tightened things up to an excellent single disc, Obligatory Villagers, tightened the arrangements as well, and traded
in pop guests from the last album, like Cyndi Lauper and kd lang, for jazz cats,
like saxophonist Dave Liebman and the sadly, recently deceased pianist/vocalist
Bob Dorough (best known nowadays for his work on Schoolhouse Rock). And it seemed like a perfect fit – her crafty,
jazz-school arrangements and witty, smart lyrics were tailor-made for musicians
like these, but the album still didn’t break her through.
It was after the release
of this album that I saw McKay live at the now-defunct Trilogy Lounge in
Boulder. After three albums of her eccentricity I wasn’t sure what to expect,
and I got this (if memory serves): McKay with keyboard and ukulele only, a great
voice, great song selection across all three albums, and a kookiness that
bordered on ADD behavior, her mind and between-song banter flitting from topic
to topic until she lost her train of thought and got back on with the next song
where she focused her energy until the next break. During one break she called
her brother on her cell to wish him a happy birthday – or pretended to maybe as
a piece of performance art? Hard to say for sure, but it’s what she does – jumps
from idea to idea, never sitting still long enough to get pigeonholed. So what came
next in her career? A tribute to Doris Day, naturally, released by the
jazz-associated Verve label, which had put in a bid for McKay’s contract in the
first place.
How does Doris Day’s
image as a mild and complacent Midwestern housewife fit in with McKay’s world of
parental advisory stickers, hip-hop influence, and explicit feminism though?
Aside from a love for the verbal wit of classic pop (as well as a longtime
commitment to animal activism), McKay’s got a basic love of melody and the voice
to pull off the kinds of tunes that Day wrapped her big voice around. Taking on
a dozen songs that Day recorded during her long career (only one of them, “Sentimental
Journey,” was a big hit for Day) and adding one original, McKay tackles tunes
from such lauded songsmiths as Rodgers and Hammerstein, George & Ira Gershwin,
Johnny Mercer and others, and, unexpectedly enough, plays it straight
throughout. She’s not here to mock, but to celebrate the direct beauty of these
melodies, the craft and (sometimes) sentimentality of these words. In short,
she’s playing it “normal as blueberry pie” here and it sounds great. If you compare
to Doris Day’s versions, Nellie McKay’s are sleeker, wilder and looser,
unburdened of Day’s orchestral backings and given jazzier, more rhythmically
exciting readings, but readings where McKay shares Day’s clear diction and
enunciation and, of course, her big voice putting the songs across. So from
love songs like “The Very Thought of You” (on which McKay plays every
instrument), “Mean to Me” and the album-highlight “Wonderful Guy” over to dance
tunes like “Crazy Rhythm” and “Dig It” to a novelty tune like Calamity Jane’s “Black Hills of Dakota,”
Nellie McKay doesn’t update, undercut, or do anything but sing (and arrange,
and perform) these tunes. Maybe there’s a wink here and there, as in the sotto
voce asides in “Dig It” but she’s never making fun – she’s just loving the songs.
This puts the focus on the songs and the words themselves, which means that
those coming to this expecting a sendup can learn not only what made these
songs popular, but also what made Day popular – there’s a smart, strong woman
performing them and she’s easy to identify with. And though McKay’s
arrangements may go further than Day could or would have gone with them at the
time, they do no disrespect.
And where has Nellie McKay gone since then? Another album
of originals for Verve (Home Sweet Mobile
Home) followed in 2010, then McKay disappeared for a bit, returning in 2015
on yet another label with an excellent album of renditions of 60’s classics, My Weekly Reader. She was quiet again
for a while but I got inspired to write this up only to find while I was
writing that her new album, Sister Orchid
(a collection of jazz standards on, again, another label), comes out in three
weeks. Be sure to check it out, but start here with what may well be her best
album.
-
Patrick Brown
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