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| Nancy Harms by Lisa Venticinque |
Today is the official release date for Nancy Harms’ new CD,
“Dreams in Apartments,” and I wish she could be here in Minneapolis to launch it.
I’ve been a Nancy fan since April 2008, when I first heard her sing one song
after Arne Fogel, whose gig it was, invited her up to the mic. Later I wrote this
brief summary: “I like Nancy’s voice and her broad, open vowels, and her red hat.”
Looking back five years, I remember that night very clearly, and what really happened:
Nancy’s voice snared me like a velvet rope and has never let go.
Nancy has those qualities I find most exciting in a jazz
singer: singularity (she doesn’t sound like anyone but herself), authenticity,
and integrity. Also the ability to take a song, turn it inside-out, and stamp her signature on it. Like Stacey Kent, Nancy sings two
notes and blows her cover. Like Patricia Barber, she inhabits her own world
of sound and invention and interpretation. She’s not as well-known as Kent and
Barber, but she should be. She has a genuinely beautiful voice (that velvet
rope) and a spacious yet precise sense of timing. She knows how to tell a story
and make a lyric spark and hum with emotion and truth. She has
courage, and she means business.
“Dreams in Apartments” is Nancy’s second album under her
name. “In the Indigo” came first, in 2009, with its killer opening track “Bye
Bye Blackbird.” She appears on trombonist Wycliffe Gordon’s “Hello Pops!”
(2011) and pianist Jeremy Siskind’s lovely “Finger-Songwriter” (2012), with its
knockout “Vanished Music, Twilit Water (for Seamus Heaney).” She’s in a group
called “Double Bass
Double Voice” with singer Emily Braden and bassist Steve Whipple, which
ignores its own limitations and makes enjoyable music. Now living in New York,
where she moved in 2010 after four years in the Twin Cities, she’s performing
at places like Birdland, Kitano, and Smalls. Once upon a time, not that long
ago, she was teaching elementary school in Milaca, Minnesota, population 2,934.
Before then, she grew up in even smaller Clara City. She was living the life
she thought she was supposed to live, then one day she jumped off the train and
began reinventing herself.
Everything Nancy sings, whether live or on recording, is
part of that reinvention process. So it’s not really surprising that “Dreams”
starts out with an original, “Weight of the World,” co-written with Arne Fogel.
The lyrics are telling: “Shake it off and start all over again.” It’s spirited
and energetic but not giddy. It has an edge. She could be singing, “Get out of
my way.”
“Dreams” is a mix of originals and standards. All of the
standards bear her stamp. “It Could Happen to You” is sigh and suggestion tempered
with world-weariness. It could happen
to you, but don’t hold your breath. In “Mood Indigo,” a co-arrangement with
pianist Aaron Parks, Ellington’s easy-going swing has been replaced by a 9/4 time
signature that changes the song so much I cling to the melody like a life raft.
I’ve heard this arranngement before, sung live, and while I admire it, I don’t get it. Except
that what Nancy does with the word “die” (“I could lay me down and die”) is to
die for.
“Never Let Me Go” is simply gorgeous. Slow and wistful, with
occasional well-placed embellishments. She’s accompanied by soft brushes and
guitar. This is dangerous late-night listening. When she sings the question, “You
couldn’t hurt me, could you?” you want to beat up anyone who would even try. Here’s
Nancy reinventing herself as vulnerable. “From My First Moment” isn’t a
standard, nor is it an original. Based on Satie’s Gymnopedie for Piano No. 1,
with lyrics by Sam Babenia, it was first recorded by Charlotte Church. That version
is unimaginative, the arrangement overdone. (I can picture Satie’s performance
instructions: “Get those strings out of there!”) Thank goodness Nancy is a jazz
singer. She shares arranging credits with Jeremy Siskind, with whom she has
recorded (“Finger-Songwriter”) and toured, and her version is about ten
thousand times more interesting.
“Midnight Sun” is sung through a smile, illuminating Johnny Mercer’s lyrics: “Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice
… The clouds were like an alabaster palace … Each star its own Aurora
Borealis.” Such juicy, tasty words: moonlit veil, nightingale, stardust, ember,
crystalline. Nancy draws out the ending, then draws it out even further,
because no one wants this night to end. The final standard on “Dreams,” also
the last track, “While We’re Young,” is lilting and hopeful. Nancy ventures more into her higher register, adding lightness to lyrics that aren’t really
about being young; they’re too wise. The song is a sweet farewell, for now.
The originals, most co-written by Nancy and Arne Fogel, hold
their own in strong company. At first, I thought “And It’s Beautiful” was
a standard, that I’d heard it before. Here, as in “Weight of the World,” the lyrics
seem personal and autobiographical: “Stepping into your life a stranger/A shell
of a former you/A distant memory of what life used to be/But there’s a fighter
that lives within you.” Wycliffe Gordon takes a guest turn on trombone, and his
horn and her voice sound like old friends.
“Out of Comfort” is the track I keep returning to. For
me, it’s the centerpiece of the album, a blend of revealing lyrics (“I step out
of comfort and there I go/No safety net to catch my fall”), dream-sequence
vocals, and an improvised midsection powered by John Hart’s electric guitar. It's the most experimental. Nancy’s
voice, absent almost all vibrato, is like water flowing downhill. It
disappears, then returns to repeat the opening line in a new key.
“Something Real” is a song of anger, frustration, and
dismissal (“I’m not your wide-eyed little girl/Not here to orbit round your
world … I’m looking for a shred of authenticity”). Too much New York? It’s
sassy, assertive, and probably the most pop-radio friendly, thanks to Hart’s
guitar. At first it seems out of place. It’s another reinvention.
I’ve mentioned Hart’s guitar and Wycliffe’s horn, but I’ve
been remiss in giving props to all the musicians. The rhythm section – Aaron
Parks on piano, organ, and Fender Rhodes; Danton Boller on bass; R.J. Miller on
drums – is sensitive and supportive, and the musicians have plenty to say. Parks contributes several beautiful solos.
Putting the right band together is daunting, and Nancy faced a special
challenge when the young pianist she originally had in mind, Shimrit
Shoshan, died unexpectedly from cardiac arrest on August 22, 2012. Nancy and
Shimrit had performed together at The Bar Next Door two weeks earlier.
“Dreams in Apartments” is about dreams in strange places and
anonymous spaces that don’t yet feel like home. It’s about restlessness and
change, the need to keep moving, the awareness that time is short, a life in
flux and on the cusp. Another line from “And It’s Beautiful” could be the
theme: “Every step is a new creation.” Well-planned and well-paced, Nancy Harms’
second album – only her second – has moments of real magic.
_____
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