Thirsty Ghost (Self-produced)
Sara Gazarek
Released August 23, 2019
Grammy Nominee for Best Jazz Vocal Album 2020
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kQQhJ_bftCNmZSjv9bx70KLQU60_ca7Rc
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7j3eu8PtMFGquHeGCzMvnu?si=ElppKZ2yT8iUqCfrHsAvQA
About:
Stumbling into a recording contract right out of college not only came with big management and an even bigger booking agency — it also came with what felt like big responsibility. At 20 years old, I was recording, touring, interacting with press and new fans. And, while everything in my career seemed to be moving in the right direction, I now see how this level of visibility at such a young age actually created a certain amount of pressure to “be the happy girl in the dress” that I felt my mentors and managers expected. I had been told that the ultimate goal was to craft a set of fun, light music that left people feeling happier than when they’d come in the door. And my band and I were giving it to them.
But three years ago (15 years in, then as a 34 year old woman), I found myself processing the dissolution of a marriage, the separation of a long term musical partnership, and my mothers almost catastrophic car accident. It was my dear friend and mentor Kurt Elling who spoke these very poignant words, and sent me on an incredibly transformative path:
“I see who you are… And it’s so much bigger, so much deeper, so much more multi-dimensional than your music is right now. Don’t be afraid to walk away from what you think people want from you – and to step into all of the depth, darkness, and radiance of who you really are. That’s what we are thirsty for. The honest, messy, beautiful YOU.”
The resulting musical journey took three years to complete — traversing a new relationship rife with doubts, lies, and infidelity, exploring new collaborations (with musicians Geoff Keezer, Larry Goldings, Stu Mindeman, Josh Johnson, and Alan Ferber), traveling abroad, endless questions, new compositions, risks… In the end, internalizing the idea that “A forest never grows, higher than the depths it knows // The warmth of sunlight comes and goes, but beauty only grows, When It Rains.”
“Thirsty Ghost” explores that honest, messy, beautiful place of hunger, thirst, wanting more – more connection, more transparency, a more whole hearted experience that occurs when we address the lessons that come with taking a deep look at adulthood. Through a series of new instrumental colors (including rhythm section, rhodes/organ, bass clarinet, alto sax, and trombone, percussion, and background vocals), some very special guests (Kurt Elling, Larry Goldings), new original material, contemporary covers (Stevie Wonder, Dolly Parton, Sam Smith), and jazz standards, my hope is that my audience will see their own whole hearted experiences reflected in this music – the light AND the dark.
Track Listing:
1. Lonely Hours (Hy Glaser)
2. Never Will I Marry (Frank Loesser)
3. Not The Only One (Sam Smith/James Napier)
4. Easy Love (Larry Goldings/Sara Gazarek)
5. I Get Along Without You Very Well (Hoagy Carmichael)
6. I Believe When I Fall In Love (Stevie Wonder)
7. Jolene (Dolly Parton)
8. Gaslight District (Larry Goldings/Sara Gazarek)
9. Riverman/River (Nick Drake/Sara Teasdale)
10. Intro: Chrysalis (Alex Boneham)
11. Cocoon (Bjork)
12. Distant Storm (Brad Mehldau/Sara Gazarek)
Personnel:
Sara Gazarek: vocals
Stu Mindeman: piano (1, 4-7, 11), Rhodes (2, 3, 8, 10)
Alex Boneham: bass
Christian Euman: drums (1-8, 10, 11)
Josh Johnson: alto saxophone (1-3, 5, 8, 10, 11)
Danny Janklow: alto saxofone (7)
Ido Meshulam: trombone (2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11)
Brian Walsh: bass clarinet (2, 3, 5, 7, 8)
Erin Bentlage: background vocals (3, 5, 7, 11)
Michael Mayo: background vocals (3, 5)
Keita Ogawa: percussion (2)
Aaron Serfaty: percussion (5)
Larry Goldings: organ (7)
Special Guest
Kurt Elling: voice (11)
Recorded August 20 – 23, 2018, at Jim Henson Recording, Los Angleles, CA
Producer: Sara Gazarek
Recorded and Mixed by Helik Hadar
Mastering Engineer: Bernie Grundman, Los Angeles, CA
Photography: Shervin Lainez
Artwork: Julian Montague
Review:
The profusion of exceptional jazz singers who’ve come into their own since 2010 shouldn’t obscure the stellar vocalists who emerged in the 21st century’s first decade. For the most part their rise hasn’t been as dramatic as the Salvant-Swiftians, but creative growth in jazz is a long game, and Sara Gazarek is playing to win. A standout talent as a teenager in Seattle, she’s lived in Los Angeles since 2000, building a sterling reputation with her keen intelligence and bright, clear, fine-grained tone.
Impressive on every level, her self-produced album Thirsty Ghost distills everything appealing about Gazarek into an intense and heady brew. It’s a major work that’s less concerned about making a jazz statement than delving into treacherous emotional terrain. She co-arranged many of the tracks with Stu Mindeman, who plays piano and Rhodes on the majority of the songs (Josh Johnson, Larry Goldings, Alex Boneham, and Geoff Keezer also contribute arrangements). Each piece features bespoke instrumentation, and what’s consistently enthralling about the album is the way Gazarek sets the songs in conversation with each other, creating an evolving dialectic about loneliness and desire, self-deception, and hard-won self-knowledge.
The album opens with a bracing blast of alienation, moving from the keenly observed “Lonely Hours” to the abject rejection of “Never Will I Marry.” Gazarek lays bare the epic self-deception of Stevie Wonder’s “I Believe When I Fall in Love,” then offers a frightening invocation of Dolly Parton’s romantic foe “Jolene.” She closes with the extraordinary “Distant Storm,” which features her lyric for Brad Mehldau’s “When It Rains.” Joined by Kurt Elling, who also wrote the liner notes, Gazarek doesn’t offer satisfying synthesis as much as embracing succor, as if the thirsty ghost has finally been sated, at least for the moment.
Andrew Gilbert (JazzTimes)
