In the arts and entertainment field, possibly the biggest career killer is to have your name out of circulation for any amount of time. If a teacher’s creed is “publish or perish,” a musician must live by “record or retire.” Vocalist Sara Gazarek put out a couple of excellent albums from 05-07, and then pulled a “Where’s Waldo” until her recent recording, a tribute to Blossom Dearie (“Blossom and Bee”) which includes appearances by John Pizzarelli, Larry Goldings, and her long time associate, Josh Nelson. If there are no Plan B’s in your career, even without a label, you’ve got to keep plugging away with your career, as Ms. Gazarek has done. We’ve recently caught up with the recently wedded Mrs. G, and she spent some time with us discussing her reasons for her musical and social past, present and future
WHAT CAUSED THE RECORDING HIATUS FOR YOU?
We did Return to You shortly and shortly after we released it, the label (editor’s note: Native Language) went through some pretty intense internal changes. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they closed shop, because they were still kind of doing music stuff. But it wasn’t the same, so we weren’t going to make another record with them. My then bassist moved to pop music, and my drummer moved to New York, so Josh (Nelson) and I wanted to take some take some time to figure out what we wanted to do. We didn’t just want to rush back into the studio and make another record. But, in that 3-4 year period there’s been a lot of “life” stuff that happened. In Josh’s life and a lot of stuff in my life, but I think that the time that we took to create this project was definitely necessary. There is a confidence and an assuredness that you can hear in this project that wasn’t there in the earlier ones. I think that we were eager to embrace the human side of our personalities, and we weren’t as concerned to prove to people that even though we were young that were also serious about our music.
I mean, we ARE serious. Obviously people hear that when they listen to our music, but ultimately we just have more of an interest of sharing who we are and sharing that side of our personalities.
AS SOON AS I HEARD THE LYRICS TO THE SONGS ON THE NEW ALBUM, AND THE CONFIDENT WAY YOU SANG ABOUT LOVE RELATIONSHIPS, I COULD TELL SOMETHING HAPPENED TO YOUR PERSONAL LIFE. YOUR RECENT RELEASE IS SO HAPPY ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS THAT IT’S ESSENTIALLY THE “ANTI-NORAH JONES” DISC. DID YOU GET MARRIED?
Yes! On the original compositions on Blossom and Bee, I was definitely thinking about my husband when I was writing those lyrics. Just kind of the necessity of sometimes being the exact same person (you marry). My husband is kind of the opposite of who I am, almost on every level. In nature and in love when you have two opposites, they can get together to create something very powerful. That definitely had something to do with it.
I think also that the confidence that you find in finding someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with, you can start making certain decisions. With a different level of confidence. Also, that tune “Lucky to be Me” was the first dance we had at our wedding, and that was just a beautiful part of our last 5 years, and so we wanted to getting into our album.
SO YOUR HUSBAND’S NOT IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS?
No, he’s a film editor, actually. He does reality shows and film documentaries. He’s edited our music videos and performance videos, our electronic press kit and all of that kind of stuff.
HOW DID YOU KNOW HE WAS THE RIGHT GUY
Just over time, getting to know him as a person that he was stable, kind, thoughtful and funny. He’s not a traditional guy where he feels threatened or insecure. He’s really excited me reaching my milestones, and I think that has to do with the fact that he’s not a musician.
DO YOU HAVE ANY INSIGHTS ON MARRIAGE THAT YOU’D LIKE TO PASS ON TO OTHERS?
We celebrated our two year anniversary, but we’ve been together for 7 years. I don’t feel like I’m in a place to give advice. But I think it’s important to complement each other in front of other people. That was a bit of advice the head of a jazz society (that I was awarded a scholarship to) gave me. She was married for something like 70 years and I asked her for advice, and that’s what she said to me. I that is something wonderful.
THE OTHER MAN IN YOUR LIFE IS PIANIST/ARRANGER/COMPOSER JOSH NELSON, WHO YOU’VE BEEN PERFORMING WITH FOR A LONG TIME. HOW DID YOU MEET JOSH NELSON?
The jazz community is pretty tightly knit, so I knew of Josh before I met him. I think that I just caught him at a great time in his life when he was open to having a collaborator. Josh is any vocalist’s dream; he’s very supportive, and he’s an incredible musician. By far the best piano player that I’ve worked with in Los Angeles, but he’s also really nice, funny and easy to work with. He’s the complete musical package, so anybody would be hard pressed to find anything that they didn’t like about Josh. So as soon as I got to know him I realized that he was the guy I wanted to latch on to and convince that him that he’s my partner. I can’t speak for Josh and tell you when he realized that we should make a partnership. But, we just are so good at anticipating each other’s movements and we know each other so well at this point in our lives that when we are doing ballads or any kind of song, we can guess where the other person is going to go before they get there.
THAT SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VOCALIST AND PIANIST SEEMS TO BE UNDER-APPRECIATED THESE DAYS. BACK IN THE DAY MOST SINGERS HAD THEIR COUNTERPART. SINATRA HAD BILL MILLER, PEGGY LEE HAD EMILIO PALAME…
I look at people that I really love, like Kurt Elling and Tierney Sutton and Kate McGarry and they each have a collaborator. Kate has her husband Keith on guitar, Tierney has Christian Jacob and Kurt has Mark Hobgood, so I knew that it would be really wonderful to have a long lasting relationship. Josh has also been working as the new guy with Natalie Cole, which has been great for her, but hard for me to share. Great for him, but frustrating for me!
HOW DID YOU INITIALLY MEET VOCALIST TIERNEY SUTTON, AND WHAT INFLUENCE HAS SHE HAD ON YOU?
She was my teacher at USC, and then we formed a pretty intense bond, and I then lived with her for a year as a nanny. Tierney has a really great sense of pitch. She’s got a beautiful approach to tuning, and she puts a lot of focus on creating a beautiful sound with her instrument. She’s got a particular approach to arranging songs. She and her band like to put their stamp on things. My approach to singing is different from Tierney’s at least in how I try to deliver a song and the way we arrange our material has a different interpretation., but I have a great level of appreciation for her.
ONE OF LA’S UNHERALDED TALENT SCOUTS IS BASSIST/BANDLEADER JOHN CLAYTON. HE’S HELPED THE CAREER OF COUNTLESS YOUNG ARTISTS LIKE DIANA KRALL AND REGINA CARTER. HOW HAS HE ASSISTED YOUR CAREER?
He was the producer of my first two records. He was a teacher at USC when I was there. The bassist in my band was his student and I did a lot of gigs John’s son Gerald. He’s very supportive of young people. He came from the school of Ray Brown, who helped get his career off the ground. That doesn’t happen very often these days with musicians, but I think that is one thing that John is trying to do. Trying to help cultivate this young group of artists and then help them in their careers.
He’s just chock full of wisdom. He gave me a lot of little sound bites that constantly rotate around in my mind. There’s one that is basically that your work is never done and that you will continue to grow as a musician and you will always have a place in the music world as long as you never stop doing your homework. You will always continue to listen and always continue to learn and study, and you’ll have a place in music. That’s something I definitely continue to take to heart. One thing that was very important for me to hear when I was younger was that, when I was 23 and nervous about how young I was and was thinking that there were other people that deserved this career more. I don’t know if I’m ready to make a record. He pulled me aside and said that I need to remind myself that even though there are other people that are just as worthy as me, I still belong here. So there’s always a place for people, and everybody has a path, and I can’t dictate my path based on other peoples’.
THERE SEEMS TO BE A SURFEIT OF YOUNG FEMALE VOCALISTS ON THE MUSIC SCENE SINCE KRALL HIT THE WAVES A DECADE AGO. BECAUSE OF THAT, WHAT CAN YOU DO AS A SINGER TO MAKE YOURSELF DIFFERENT FROM EVERYONE ELSE OUT THERE. IN OTHER WORDS, WHY DO YOU THINK PEOPLE COME TO SEE YOU, AND NOT SOMEONE ELSE?
I think it just comes down to what moves people. I think that for me, my approach to music has very little to do with impressing people. Personally, when I see an artist, I’m not really moved by people and thinking, “Wow, that’s cool that they can do that.” What I’m moved by is seeing somebody, and then feeling something differently than when I walked into the room. My goal is to really invest myself into the songs and the interpretations and to put 100% of my experience into it, and not impress people, but more generally try to express something. If people are into that, or like my voice, or like the band and the arrangements, they’ll like us, but it’s just preference, I guess.
I’m not really into vocal gymnastics, and I think that’s why this record was inspired by Blossom Dearie. She’s the same way. Everything to her was about the music and its interpretation, and it’s this beautiful simplicity and unwavering musicality. It really comes down to the delivery and making people feel something.
ONE THING YOU BRING TO THE MUSICAL TABLE THAT IS REFRESHING IS THAT YOU DON’T STAY LOCKED IN THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK. YOU’VE RECORDED SOME OBSCURE PIECES BY PAUL MCCARTNEY, AND YOU SEEM TO VEER TOWARDS THE JONI MITCHELL SIDE OF LIFE.
Everybody in the band is around the age of thirty, and even though we love jazz music, and it’s our thing, there are other songs that inspire us as well. I think in Return to You there was only one jazz standard on that record. The latest record we definitely have way more jazz material, but the Schoolhouse Rock tune and the Disney song, those are songs that are not classified as traditional jazz material, but for us it’s just about finding songs that we identify with, move us and that feel like we can bring something to via interpretation.
DO YOU SIT AROUND AND THROW SONG IDEAS AROUND WITH EACH OTHER?
It just comes down to the song. I didn’t just come to the group and say, “I want to do a Ben FOwlkes song.” I just said, “I want to do this song.” The Joni Mitchell song, there’s always a relationship with the songs. “The Circle Game” was on the first record, it was a tune from my camp counselor days. “Some of These Days” was an old vaudeville from the new record was something I sang in high school at a vaudeville review. All of these songs have a relationship with me, and that’s why I bring them to the table. It’s not like I want to do this because it’s a good song, but because I have a relationship with the tune and have something to say with it, and let me share it with the world.
LOS ANGELES CAN BE A GRAVEYARD FOR JAZZ CLUBS. WE’VE HAD SO MANY CLOSE DOWN THE PAST FEW YEARS. WITH SO FEW PROSPECTS, HOW DOES A LOCAL ARTIST SURVIVE?
You have to be creative. We’re doing a cd release here in LA at Vitellos in Studio City. I’ve never played there before, but I heard that they have an organ there. Our producer, Larry Goldings, played one on our cd, so it seemed like a good place to have a cd release. We’ve done some shows at the Blue Whale, and some at LACMA. We don’t often play Catalina’s, but I’m looking forward mostly to the new location of the Jazz Bakery.
YOU’RE AT THE STAGE IN YOUR CAREER WHERE YOU’RE WELL INTO YOUR CAREER, BUT YOU STILL NEED SOME STIMULUS FOR YOUR CRAFT. HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT GROWING AS AN ARTIST? WHAT MOTIVATES AND INSPIRES YOU?
Well, I’m also a teacher. I’m on faculty at USC, so I work with young people, and when they learn I also learn because I’m responsible for what I’m trying to teach them. There are always more songs to learn, always more breathing exercises to do, and there’s always more technical work and improv exercises. Right now, a goal of mine is to practice the piano for twenty minutes a day, there’s always more to learn in music, so I’m always pushing myself to learn more.
I love reading different kinds of poetry, like Hafiz and Rumi. I like a lot of American poets. I’m a big fan of Mary Oliver and EE Cummings. I listen to a lot of young artists. I like watching documentaries, and seeing art shows. I love taking in information. As long as you’re inspired and can find things that inspire you, I think that’s part of the growth process.
I think that anybody that has a connection to music is inspiring to me. I would find a way to sneak in the theatre and see any Bobby McFerrin show. With him, it’s like witnessing something that I think other people have ; an ability to create and improvise. His approach to the things that he hears and the things that he makes me feel when I hear them is something different than anything else I’ve ever experienced before. It’s impressive to see what he does, but goes beyond just being impressive. It’s also that he’s an entertainer, that he’s really funny on stage, but when he wants to, he can have his improvisations be incredibly moving. I love watching Dudamel conduct, it’s inspiring to see. I love Kneebody out of New York and Kate McGarry’s music. She’s a singer that has a great connection with her music.
I also love watching videos of some of the older entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and Carmen McRae and watch them hold an audience in their hands and sculpt them like putty. It’s so inspiring; like how Sinatra has this impeccable balance of being entertaining and funny, but also having a phenomenal control of his instrument, and being able to emote something convincingly.
HAVE YOU DONE THAT?
I think I’m on my way. I definitely don’t think I’ll ever feel that I’ve arrived, but I continue to try. I do my best to be incredibly present in the studio, which is hard, and to also think about the inspiration behind each song. I really try to express the lyrics as if I’m singing them for the first time. The goal of the record is to capture the joy, excitement and energy of our live performances, which is something we’ve never done before. The really heart wrenching ballads like “The Lies of Handsome Men”, as well as the exciting fun energy of “Everything I’ve Got” with the joking humor of “Down with Love,” there’s a level of vulnerability but also a level of confidence on this record that we don’t have with the other ones. The one thing that differentiates this record from the others is the energy on this one.
IN THIS DAY OF WHERE IT SEEMS EVERYONE IS AFRAID OF A LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP, IT’S REFRESHING TO HEAR A SINGER TELL POSITIVE STORIES ABOUT MARRIAGE AND ROMANTIC COMMITMENT. LIKEWISE, HEARING GAZAREK SING A SONG, SHE GOES BACK TO THE TRADITION OF LITERALLY “TELLING A STORY” EACH OF THE SONGS SHE ELICITS SHARES SOMETHING ABOUT HER, WHICH MAKES THE MUSICAL EXPERIENCE ALL THE MORE PLEASURABLE. TRACE DOWN HER LATEST RELEASE, AND LOOK FOR HER IN THE LOCAL CLUB SCENE. YOU’LL COME OUT BACK INTO YOUR CAR A HAPPIER PERSON.