Patty Carpenter's latest recording brings into harmony her love of good, hard-swinging jazz, her appreciation for the song writing craft, and the pleasures of her daytime job, singing for senior citizens in senior centers and nursing homes throughout New England.
As those who have heard her know, Patty has a strong, clear and wonderfully buoyant trumpet-like voice and an affinity for long, swinging straight-ahead lines, like those of her favorite tenor saxophonists John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, and Wayne Shorter. She also has an ear for the emotional content of the lyrics. She sings to tell a story and find meaning in the words. "Memories of Love's Refrain" is taken from a line in Hoagy Carmichael's famous Stardust. It's a favorite with her senior audiences who confide to Patty that they "fell in love" to that song.
Patty Carpenter's love of music began in the mid-fifties when, still a toddler, she first heard The Hall of the Mountain King from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite. Her grandfather, who lived in her house in Rochester, New York, had a large classical collection. As Patty grew up, she listened to folk, rock, pop, blues and jazz. She played piano, bottleneck guitar, and sang in local coffeehouses. Her first musical hero was Julie Andrews. From Mary Poppins she matured to dig Joan Baez, Janis Joplin and Billie Holiday. (Annette Funicello was another early hero, -"but not for her singing," Patty says.)
Patty takes a special delight in singing for seniors. As a teenager, she often took her grandfather to the local senior center. She'd sing and play the piano and the old folks would love it. Now she does it on a regular circuit. "Seniors are a hip audience," Patty says. "They know good music. They grew up listening to swing bands and know all the standards. Playing for them can be a wonderfully moving experience. It's like transporting them back to their youth."
In the jazz studies program at the University of Massachusetts, Patty studied with tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp and bassist Reggie Workman. Workman told her, "if you want to sing the music, learn its history," which Patty did. There's a lot of Miles Davis' bittersweet blues in her version of Bye Bye Blackbird, and Billie Holiday-like behind-the-beat phrasing in I Can't Give You Anything but Love, and the other up tempo numbers.
Patty spent a year in New York City, playing the piano bar circuit, but wanted to raise her family in rural New England. (That's daughter Melissa, a singer in her own right who often gigs with her mother, doing the harmony on When I Grow Too Old To Dream). Music keeps her busy. In addition to her work with seniors and her gigs (solo or with jazz accompaniment) in area clubs and restaurants, she has her own rock band, Patty & the Cakes and does big band dates with the Radio Swing Orchestra. She's also available, along with her musician friends, for the proverbial weddings, parties and bar mitzvahs.
The small towns and back roads of the Connecticut River Valley are bursting with artists, writers and musicians who have chosen to escape-or never wanted to be part of-the Big Apple pressure cooker. Some of the best local jazz musicians back Patty on this record.
Tom McClung, who grew up in Northampton and graduated from Marlboro College, is every singer's favorite pianist in the Valley. He also plays and records with the Paradise City Jazz Band and does solo work. A hard-driving improviser who knows how to lay-back and complement a singer, McClung reminds this listener of another Bay State stay-at-home pianist, Dave McKenna.
Tenor saxophonist Fred Haas has toured with Ray Charles, Tommy Dorsey, and Pat Methany. He often gigs with guitarist Atilla Zoller who has a jazz school in Newfane, Vermont, and teaches sax, piano and jazz studies at Dartmouth and Middlebury Colleges.
Dave Shapiro played bass in the house band of Eddie Condon's famous New York City jazz club and has recorded with Chet Baker, Woody Herman, Lee Konitz, Anita O'Day and Howard McGee.
Draa Hobbs is a virtuoso guitarist and songwriter who has played with Tal Farlow, Jon Friedman, Attila Zoller, Harold Danko, and George Mraz. He teaches at Marlboro College, Northfield-Mount Hermon and at the Vermont Jazz Center.
Drummer Randy Kaye has collaborated with Jimmy Guiffre for over 25 years and has played with Jimi Hendrix, Sheila Jordan, Roswell Rudd, Charlie Mariano and Tony Scott.
Whether you swooned to Sinatra or jitterbugged to Goodman, Miller, the Dorseys, and Count Basie, whether you are a twenty or thirty-something, a teenage slacker, a generation "x-er", or a baby boomer like Patty, you are sure to be touched by Memories of Love's Refrain and the marvelous, lyrical singing of Patty Carpenter.