Kate McGarry

Kate McGarry is a jazz vocalist.

She grew up in an Irish-American family with nine siblings in Hyannis, Massachusetts. She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst and graduated 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 year, she lived in Los Angeles. She sang in clubs, did film and television work in Hollywood, and recorded her first album, Easy to Love (Vital Music, 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 (released independently in 2001, reissued by Palmetto Records in 2003).

McGarry looks beyond the jazz world for material, singing cover versions of Peter Gabriel, Björk, and Joni Mitchell on Mercy Streets (Palmetto, 2005), the Irish song "The Heather on the Hill" on The Target (Palmetto, 2007), and "American Tune" by Paul Simon on Genevieve & Ferdinand (Sunnyside, 2014), which she recorded with her husband, guitarist Keith Ganz.

She has worked with Kurt Elling, Fred Hersch, John Hollenbeck, and Maria Schneider. She appeared on the radio programs Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland, 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.

• Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album, If Less is More...Nothing is Everything, 2009
• Voted Rising Star, Down Beat magazine's Critics' Poll, 2011–2016
• Outstanding Jazz Vocalist, NYC Nightlife Awards
• Jazz ambassador, three years

• Easy to Love (Vital, 1992)
• Show Me (Orchard, 2001)
• Mercy Streets (Palmetto, 2005)
• The Target (Palmetto, 2007)
• If Less Is More...Nothing Is Everything (Palmetto, 2008)
• Girl Talk (Palmetto, 2012)
• Genevieve and Ferdinand (Sunnyside, 2014) with Keith Ganz