Karen Marguth

Karen’s Blog: Marguth on Jazz

karen — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:28:56 +0000

Karen has begun to blog about her thoughts on music and education from her unique perspective as a lifelong teacher and performer. Her first piece is about the influence of bassists on the work of vocalists. She discusses the impact of bassists such as Jason Jurzak, and John Clayton on her development as a musician.

Check it out here at http://marguthonjazz.blogspot.com/

Karen to perform with Pearl Django

karen — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:17:10 +0000

Friday, May 24th, Karen will perform at the Warnors Center for the Performing Arts (in their club “Frank’s Place”) with the world-renowned gypsy swing band, Pearl Django.

Karen, accompanied by guitarist Rich Severson, will open the show, and then be joined onstage by the members of Pearl Django to perform a set of their tunes. After an intermission, the band will return for a second set.

Tickets are available at the Warnor’s box office, at: http://tickets.warnors.org/

For information about guitarist Rich Severson, please visit:

http://www.eastmanguitars.com/portfolio/rich-severson/

For information about Pearl Django, please visit:

http://www.pearldjango.com/index.shtml

Jazz at the Library

karen — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:40:29 +0000

Karen will serve as a member of a panel discussing the present and future of jazz at Jazz Fresno’s May event. Information from Jazz Fresno’s website is below:

JazzFresno and the Fresno County Public Libraries host (free and open to the public) Jazz at the Library on Tuesday, May 21st, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. at the Woodward Park Regional County Library located at 944 E. Perrin Ave.

Please join us for a special Jazz at the Library event: a panel discussion on the topic “Take it from the Top: Views on the Present and Future of Jazz.” Jazz musicians and educators Mike Dana, Brian Hamada, and Karen Marguth will be joined on the panel by Joe Moore [formerly with KFSR (90.7 FM) and currently with KVPR (89.3 FM)]. This promises to be an informative, educational and exciting evening. Don’t miss the May 21st Jazz at the Library!

http://www.jazzfresno.org/content/view/240/32/

Grand Opry Set with The Stumbleweeds

karen — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:08:15 +0000

Karen’s country swing project, with guitarist Rich Severson, is called The Stumbleweeds. They’ll make their debut performance at this Saturday’s Fresno Grand Opry.

The Stumbleweeds is comprised of David Aus on piano, Gary Newmark on drums, Pete Scaffidi on bass, Tim Johnson on fiddle, Karen and Debi Ruud on vocals, and Rich Severson on guitar. Rich writes most of the band’s tunes, which are in a genre he calls, with tongue firmly in cheek, “Cow Basie.”

For more information about Rich Severson , visit www.guitarcollege.net.

You can hear some beautiful playing by Rich and Gary at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQqdXPlWh3A

The Poetry of Jazz, The Jazz of Poetry

karen — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 08:07:23 +0000

Composer and saxophonist Benjamin Boone has invited Karen to sing as part of his new project.

Dr. Boone has composed original music to accompany the poetry of former U. S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Levine. The musicians will record live in the studio with Dr. Levine, performing the music written to go along with each poem.

For information about Dr. Benjamin Boone, visit his website here: http://www.benjaminboone.com/

For information about Philip Levine, and to listen to audio of him reading his poem “A New Day,” click here: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/19

WJSU All Things Social interview

karen — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 23:00:17 +0000

We now have the audio for Karen’s WJSU “All Things Social” interview.

Download it, and listen later…
[ Right-click to download ]

Thank you to Christopher Brooks for inviting Karen to do this interview. WJSU is Mississippi’s NPR affiliate, located at Jackson State University.

DownBeat Magazine gives Karen’s new album Four Stars

karen — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 04:33:29 +0000

A Way With Words ★★★★

Though not a household name, Carroll Coates’ tunes have been sung by Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Carmen McRae, Mel Torme, Cleo Laine and others. They’re sturdily built love songs, characterized by gentility, female wiles vs. male stoicism, clever word-play and soft-pedaled emotion. They smack of a more sophisticated and civil time and place, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Karen Marguth is a capable California singer with a sparkle to her sound—think of Blossom Dearie, but an octave lower and with a fuller timbre. She interprets two discs worth of Coates in fine instrumental settings graced by alto saxophonist Richie Cole and trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos. The arrangements—either by pianist Jason Wanner or seemingly by committee—frame her well.

Marguth sings expressively without calling attention to herself, which is a neat trick. She has honey in her low-to-medium-dynamic voice, and she swings subtly: a hint of melisma here, a drawn-out last syllable there. The vocal phrasing is fairly close to the beat, and her diction is crystal clear. The sublime tag chorus to “Later For Love,” a bright waltz, has some sumptuous scat-and-alto chasing. It’s over much too soon.

Cole is quite a singer himself. Whether soloing or playing obligatos, he’s full of melodious invention. Castellanos’s soft-edged flugel horn gives dimension to the ballads “Better To Have Loved” and “It’s Time”; his incisive muted trumpet injects tang to “Afterglow.”

—Kirk Silsbee

Karen to perform in support of new Cultural Arts Center

karen — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:27:22 +0000

Karen will perform at the upcoming Central Valley Jazz Festival, being hosted by the City of Selma as a fundraiser for the completion of their beautiful, new Arts Center. The event takes place in Pioneer Square from 2-10pm on Saturday, June 15th. Tickets will be available via tickettomato.com. Other performers will include Zzah and Patrick Lamb.

Here is what the Selma Arts Council website says about their reasons for creating a Community Arts Center:

Why a Cultural Arts Center?

The Arts are cornerstones of creativity, and of so much more! Whether taking the form of music, dance, drama, or any visual or literary discipline, the Arts have tremendous value, to the artist, the audience and the community at large. Advocates and patrons of the Arts in southeastern Fresno County have recognized that by encouraging and fostering the Arts, we are broadening our region’s quality of life. The Arts bridge cultural differences and produce common ground for interaction and communication. They broaden learning and personal talents and skills, and build a sense of personal achievement. The arts make a community’s social and aesthetic structures blossom, and create important economic advantages. For everyone, the Arts are a source of enjoyment and satisfaction. To suitably nourish and house the Arts, the people of Selma and the south county, along with the City of Selma, have created the Selma Cultural Arts Center and its theater and exhibition center, C.F. Unger Hall.

Review from Italy for Karen’s eponymous CD

karen — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:41:34 +0000

From a review that appeared on the Italian site, De Baser:

The great jazz vocalists have shaped the kind of features which should blend in a song: the feel for rhythm of a true musician; the interpretation of the melody; a unique delivery of the lyrics, and; playing off the other musicians and improvising. This is an art of the past, ‘classical’ and very demanding, which few singers achieve today. Consider singers like Anita O’Day, the sacred three Billie/Ella/Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Betty Carter, Mark Murphy and Sheila Jordan. This art is perhaps carried out today only by Kurt Elling.

A few years ago, sifting through foreign music magazines in a shop, I read rave reviews of a new album by a self-produced singer from California in the jazz journal Downbeat (four and 1/2 stars). Apparently this was a ‘new’ singer who performed standards, both known and obscure, and who often relied on just her voice and a bass to deliver detailed and unique performances! The few times I’ve heard singers with the courage to do this with great results, it was Sheila Jordan, Nancy King, and early Tierney Sutton, whose voices and interpretations are absolutely extraordinary.

However, a few weeks later I managed to get the cd. The enthusiasm was entirely due, no less. Karen Marguth has a light voice, decidedly agile, mobile, and accurate. She has the rare, great capacity for true champions of instrumental jazz singing to surprise and fascinate. With a strong improvisational verve, she can scat and deliver tongue twisters at breakneck speed, playing with the sounds of words and managing rapid chord changes without neglecting a subtle, playful joke or falling into triviality. Her skill at vocalese is reminiscent of Annie Ross. Her virtuosity is clear in any weather, from the fastest tunes with the whole band or alone with a bass, to slower ballads, to songs from vaudeville. Her touching version of “Everything Happens To Me” for voice and mandolin is truly worthy of historical interpreters of the past.

Karen plays with a group of guitar, bass, mandolin, and drums, called Espacio, which creates around her voice a sound that is rhythmically driving but airy and light, almost Gypsy jazz to my ears. This record is a gem. It is so not only because Ms. Marguth IS that kind of incredible, gifted performer; but the more so because her whole group here is tight and strong, plain and rough in the best sense, with its own peculiar sound. I wish her good luck on her new album, hoping that the unpredictable beauty and originality of this impeccable self-produced CD does not go astray.

Review of Karen’s Show in the San Diego Reader

karen — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:23:34 +0000

Karen Marguth: Swinging in Pacific Beach

Marguth has all the tools, and she knows how to use them.

Vocalist Karen Marguth breezed into the new Dizzy’s on Saturday, January 26th, fronting a kind of California-All-Star group featuring LA woodwind specialist Nate Ketner, San Francisco bassist Sam Rocha, Fresno drummer Nathan Guzman and San Diegan Jason Wanner, for a superbly paced evening of consistently swinging jazz.

Marguth is the real deal, spot-on intonation, crystal clear enunciation, and, above all, a flawless sense of phrasing.

Opening with “Old Black Magic,” Marguth hit the ground running– over the propulsive bass of Rocha, her resonant voice soared, swooped and most of all, swung while Wanner soloed with melodic velocity and Ketner roared with a Dexter Gordon-esque verve.

Proving that she’s equally adept at “straight-eighth” material, she tackled the bossa-nova groove of “I Have A Feeling” with a lithe and natural ability before transitioning into a barrelhouse treatment of “Comes Love,” which found her taking long, held-tones and stretching them like saltwater taffy. Ketner’s alto saxophone featured piercing wails trailing wide arcs of the blues. Rocha’s solo motored along with a vocal unison and short glissandi, while Wanner seemed to come from a pre-bop era, with a series of rollicking trills.

She can also handle a ballad, her pitch-perfect voice stripped free of artifice on “So I Love You”, over the tinkling piano harmonies of Wanner, yielding to the resonant purr of Ketner’s tenor, which decorated the changes with a comfortable élan.

Marguth took Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird,” over bass-only accompaniment, and segued into “Bye-Bye Blackbird,” without raising an eyebrow.

She was generous with the solo space as well, giving Ketner an opportunity to soar like Johnny Hodges on “Stardust” and burn like an arsonist on Bird’s “Au Privave.” Wanner had a marvelous feature on “In A Sentimental Mood,” which fit his retro style like a glove.

Guzman, who spent most of the night in super-quiet support mode, finally got a chance to bust out with a superlative solo on “Lagrimas Negras,” sounding like multiple drummers locked in a shoot-out.

Marguth is a true professional, and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Robert Bush, January 28, 201