Career
McGarry grew up in an Irish-American family with nine siblings [1] in Hyannis, Massachusetts. She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, graduating with a degree in jazz and Afro-American Music. After graduating, she became a member of the vocal group One O'Clock Jump. For ten years she lived in Los Angeles. She sang in clubs, did film and television work in Hollywood, and recorded her first album, Easy to Love (1992). In 1996, she moved to the Catskill Mountains in New York to study at an ashram. Three years later, she moved to New York City, returned to singing in clubs, and recorded her second album, Show Me. [2]
Hyannis is the largest of the seven villages in the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is the commercial and transportation hub of Cape Cod and was designated an urban area as of the 1990 census. Because of this, many refer to Hyannis as the "Capital of the Cape". It contains a majority of the Barnstable Town offices and two important shopping districts: the historic downtown Main Street and the Route 132 Commercial District, including Cape Cod Mall and Independence Park, headquarters of Cape Cod Potato Chips. Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis is the largest on Cape Cod.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a public research and land-grant university in Amherst, Massachusetts. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system. UMass Amherst has an annual enrollment of approximately 1,300 faculty members and more than 30,000 students. It was ranked 26th best public university and 70th best national university by U.S. News Report in 2019.
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas close to or within the borders of the Catskill Park, a 700,000-acre (2,800 km2) forest preserve forever protected from many forms of development under New York state law.
McGarry looks beyond the jazz world for material, singing cover versions of Peter Gabriel, Björk, and Joni Mitchell on Mercy Streets (Palmetto, 2005), [2] the Irish song "The Heather on the Hill" on The Target (Palmetto, 2007), [3] and "American Tune" by Paul Simon on Genevieve & Ferdinand (Sunnyside, 2014), which she recorded with her husband, guitarist Keith Ganz. [4]
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and activist who rose to fame as the original lead singer and frontman of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, Gabriel launched a successful solo career with "Solsbury Hill" as his first single. His 1986 album, So, is his best-selling release and is certified triple platinum in the UK and five times platinum in the U.S. The album's most successful single, "Sledgehammer", won a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards and, according to a report in 2011, it was MTV's most played music video of all time.
Björk Guðmundsdóttir is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, record producer, actress and DJ. Over her four-decade career, she has developed an eclectic musical style that draws on a range of influences and genres spanning electronic, pop, experimental, classical, trip hop, IDM, and avant-garde music.
Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell is a Canadian singer-songwriter. Drawing from folk, pop, rock, and jazz, Mitchell's songs often reflect social and environmental ideals as well as her feelings about romance, confusion, disillusionment, and joy. She has received many accolades, including nine Grammy Awards and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Rolling Stone called her "one of the greatest songwriters ever", and AllMusic has stated, "When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century".
She has worked with Kurt Elling, Fred Hersch, John Hollenbeck, and Maria Schneider. She appeared on the radio programs Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland, [1] All Things Considered, and Jazz Set with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She has taught at the Manhattan School of Music and New England Conservatory of Music. [5]
Kurt Elling is an American jazz singer and songwriter.
Fred Hersch is an American jazz pianist and educator. He has performed solo and led his own groups, including the Pocket Orchestra consisting of piano, trumpet, voice, and percussion. He was the first person to play weeklong engagements as a solo pianist at the Village Vanguard in New York City. He has recorded more than 70 of his jazz compositions. Hersch has been nominated for several Grammy Awards, and, as of December 2014, had been on the Jazz Studies faculty of the New England Conservatory since 1980.
John Hollenbeck is a jazz drummer and composer from Binghamton, New York known for his work with The Claudia Quintet and Bob Brookmeyer.
