Music. Gig News. Random Asides.
For booking inquiries - info@karenmack.com
In the long list of fantastic things happening in my world, this at the TOP and a true honor! More details & info on event tickets below.
My new solo record is now being lovingly mastered by BEN WITTMAN, and every day we get closer to getting it out into your ears and hands - check out the IndieGoGo page for info & progress on how it started and how it's going.
NEXT UP: 3/12/24 W/ELLIOT ROTH AT PANGEA NYC
2 For Tuesday with 2 big sets of swing & whatnot from 8:30p to 10:30p, and March has Women's History Month plus the Sarah Vaughan Centennial
NO COVER, credit cards A-OK
more info in gig section below
Most of all, thanks to everyone checking this out for all you do to support & elevate independent music & art.
Thank you so much Gerry Geddes, Sherry Eaker, and Mark Dundas Wood for recognizing my work with a Bistro Award for Variety in Performance.
The Bistros are a widely respected press-driven award, sponsored in part by ASCAP, and each year the categories are specific to work they've found outstanding. To receive one for excellence in variety and versatility is the highest compliment I could ask for, given how many creative hats I wear and that my musical life lives in many worlds.
The Awards ceremony will be a live show where all the winners will be present and get to perform.
To say it's a starry list of honorees is putting it mildly - such high end company I'm in!
Monday April 1st at 7pm
Gotham Comedy Club
208 West 23rd St. NYC
For more event & ticket info - https://bistroaward.com/2024-tickets-reg/
AND WE'RE COMING BACK PROVINCETOWN MA!
Elliot & I had such a a blast playing the Crown & Anchor with our all-Sondheim set last summer.
Did it swing? Well, yes it did! :-)
Thanks Patricia Fitzpatrick & everyone at the Provincetown Cabfest - a creative Cape tradition still going loud, proud, and strong!
THIS YEAR'S FEST KICKS OFF 6/3/24 AND WE'RE BACK WITH A NEW SHOW SAT 6/8 & OUR MASTERCLASS "READ THE ROOM!" earlier in the week!
More 'Fest info & tickets at https://www.provincetowncabaretfest.com
Deep thanks to BistroAwards.com for this nice write-up of our monthly hit at Pangea NYC - read the review here
and
Thank you BroadwayWorld.com too for the nomination as Best NYC Duo Show 2022!
Honor to be recognized!
Vue180's roof deck music series is going dark through winter, so my hits with jazz guitarist Leonid Morozov here are postponed, but watch for us to jump back into this cool space when it's a warmer space, which will be soon if the groundhog is right.
Meanwhile, you can deep dive Leonid's instagram - @leonidjv
(great clip of him with Samara Joy)
This site features info on my solo & producing mack-inations, and shout-outs on events with talented pals you should know about. For what's up with my vocal group Those Girls (2023 MAC winners Best Vocal Duo/Group) visit ThoseGirlsSing.com. AND I'm super lucky to be making some jazz-based noise with the crazy talented Elliot Roth - check out his site theelliotroth.com & our gig info below.
"There are no bad ideas - just good ideas that went horribly wrong." - A. Lincoln (or maybe Ghandi or Brendan Fraser,
and watch him in "Doom Patrol" - Academy Award Winner Brendan not Ghandi)
"Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.” - D. Mamet
(that one's really true.)
We had great session days at Big Orange Sheep Studios, Brooklyn NY. Highly recommend and omg that piano. Basics done - this band killed. Now onto vocals!
More pix & maybe some bootleg audio to sneak you soon!
Big huge thanks to my dear crowdfunders & to Peter Eldridge (producer/arr/piano/birthday coordinator), Matt Aronoff (basses), Jesse Lewis (guitars), Jared Schonig (drums/perc), Elliot Roth (add'l piano/vox) and the best engineer MP Kuo!
Two more amazing session days, this time at 2nd Story Sound in NYC. Thank you so much MP Kuo, Peter Eldridge, Elliot Roth, Libby Fox & Loren Finkelstein for shooting pix, and whoever at the studio makes sure there's plenty of nice cold diet cola.
Next up: Some incredible guest players dropping in a few solos! You are not ready! :-)
More news & perks rolling out soon!!
"Sweet Pumpkin" (Dr. Ronnell Bright) - featuring Tedd Firth on piano, Jennifer Vincent on bass, mix & video edit Sean Swinney at Sean Swinney Recording (NYC)
Karen Mack is a multi-award winning singer/songwriter based in NYC, with creative roots planted in jazz, folk, pop, and swing. Over the last twenty years, she's established herself as a popular favorite of audiences and critics alike in many of New York City's top clubs and performance spaces. Her varied musical influences are apparent in her style, which meshes a warm jazz/folk sensibility with an affinity for richly textured vocal harmony, wordplay and improvisation, creating a truly unique listening experience, whether you're looking for moving ballads, soulful blues, or fierce in-the-pocket swing. LGNY says “in addition to her sense of humor, she has the kind of voice one longs to hear…her flawless placement, appealing style and dead-on performance are electrifying!” and The Village Voice echoed “Mack can knock anything with a beat out of the ballpark.”
Her new solo album with producer/arranger Peter Eldridge from the internationally acclaimed vocal group New York Voices, is slated to drop early 2024, and features Matt Aronoff (bass), Peter Eldridge (piano), Jesse Lewis (guitar), Jared Schonig (drums), Ben Wittman (percussion), and guest appearances by Darmon Meader, Nadje Noordhuis, and Elliot Roth.
Karen made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2019, and her Jazz at Lincoln Center debut in 2022 with the award-winning vocal quartet Those Girls. She was part of the 25th Anniversary Gala for the NY Pops, Handel’s “Messiah Rocks - A Joyful Noise” at NJPAC, and featured in the UK premier of “Build Me A Bridge - The Music of Miller and Hammonds” at the Bridewell Theater in London’s West End. Club appearances include New York's Town Hall, Symphony Space, Birdland, Feinsteins/54 Below, B.B. King's, Nashville Jazz Cave, Parker's in Austin, The Bottom Line, Caroline’s, Sony Hall, Pangea, The Bitter End, Tula's Jazz in Seattle, London's Battersea Barge, and numerous college keggers. Currently, she can been seen in tandem with New York Times hailed jazz pianist/vocalist Elliot Roth monthly in their jazz/swing residency at Pangea (NYC), now in its third year.
As a songwriter, she was acknowledged for her debut recording "Take That" (Miss Prim Records) in a cover story by Show Business Weekly on promising writers on the rise, in prestigious, well-established company that included Julie Gold (From A Distance), Amanda McBroom (The Rose), and John Bucchino (Grateful). She is a 2024 Bistro Award winner for Variety in Cabaret Performance, an eleven-time MAC Award winner for vocal performance and songwriting, as well as for her current vocal harmony work in NYC pop vocal group Those Girls(thosegirlssing.com), and for 12+ years prior with talented singer/songwriter Michael Holland as half of the pro vocal duo that brought the acclaimed & ridiculous retropop series “Gashole!” to the world.
Always drawn to rich and complex vocal harmony, Karen was a performing member and co-managing partner of DOO-WA-ZOO, a five-part contemporary a cappella group with a pop/rock repertoire of original compositions and creative covers back before Pentatonix ruled the aca-earth. Featured on the nationally broadcast VH1 special "Takin' It to the Streets", the vocal band headlined at major venues on the east coast such as The Bottom Line, The Bitter End, The Ironhorse, New England Conservatory, Princeton University, Penn State University, and the 92nd St. Y, NYC. All members of the group were contributing writers and arrangers. Their independently produced EP "Onomatopoeia" is considered among the best in contemporary a cappella by TAXI Independent A&R (LA), as well as the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America (CASA), and continues to enjoy national and international airplay.
And if you don't care so much about music, but are into quality baked goods, be sure to friend her on FB before October when her daily baking and posting for National Cookie Month begins (yes, that's a real thing... yes, she bakes a different cookie every single day & posts sometimes great/sometimes wobbly pix on social media... seriously.)
The Triad Theater, 158 West 72nd St. NYC
Yes indeed - it's an annual thing now & NEVER TOO SOON TO PLAN AHEAD!
Full band and fancy lighting and holiday tunes way before you have a c...
The Triad Theater, 158 West 72nd St. NYC
Pangea Supper Club & Lounge, 178 Second Ave. NYC
Join us for TWOFER TUESDAYS! Two piano/vocal sets in Pangea's beautiful front lounge - NO cover, great food, great service. Acoustic jazz, o...
Pangea Supper Club & Lounge, 178 Second Ave. NYC
Pangea Supper Club & Lounge, 178 Second Ave.NYC
A musical stocking-full of some of the best jazz singers in NYC, including Jay Leonhart, Louise Rogers, Daryl Sherman, Alex Leonard Ronny Wh...
Pangea Supper Club & Lounge, 178 Second Ave.NYC
The Triad Theater, 158 West 72nd St. NYC
People liked the "Elliot & Karen First Ever Holiday Thing" so much that we're doing a second ever one this year! Click here for tix!
Full ba...
The Triad Theater, 158 West 72nd St. NYC
Jazz at Lincoln Center Frederick P Rose Hall, 10 Columbus Circle NYC
Honored to be invited again to be part of the Mabel Mercer Foundation's Cabaret Convention at JALC. We're part of a very starry line-up on t...
Jazz at Lincoln Center Frederick P Rose Hall, 10 Columbus Circle NYC
"In addition to her sense of humor, she has the kind of voice one longs to hear... her flawless placement, appealing style and dead on performance are electrifying... she'll give you chills she's that good!"
C. Byrne, LGNY
"They are both seasoned pros... they offer a smart, sophisticated, intriguing collection of songs with Roth’s superb piano underscoring his and Mack’s smooth, supple, beautifully phrased vocals offering lucky diners and drinkers a superb evening of entertainment. Warm and witty, with nothing forced or trite... they are so in tune they seem sometimes to finish each other’s sentences and thoughts... intertwining solos, duets and a well-chosen medley or two. Their song list includes pop, originals (Mack has long been lauded as a fine songwriter), standards, and a healthy seasoning of bossa, which pleased me no end. If you are there for the first set, you are likely to stay for the second. I would have gladly stayed for a third and a fourth set by the marvelous Karen Mack and Elliot Roth." - Gerry Geddes, Bistroawards.com
"Both accomplished vocalists, Elliot and Karen show particular skill with their duets... the winsome twosome are the boy-girl act that everyone has been waiting for... and with their friendly, laid back connection to the crowd, to say nothing of Roth's inventive arrangements, it wouldn't surprise this reporter if their monthly residency will be upgraded to more than once a month!" - S. Mosher, BroadwayWorld.com
"...kindred spirits, they are a likable pair, complementing each other and gracious. They are clearly at ease with one another and at ease with different musical styles. With Roth's prodigious piano skills and the stylish singing of both, the clear-voiced twosome are a clear choice for a nice downtown hang!”" - R.Lester, BroadwayWorld.com
"I'll say it up front: Do not miss this show! Mack's voice has a precision and purity of tone that's nothing short of stunning... It's a satisfying breath of fresh musical air.”
John Michael Koroly - Whitney Radio/WVOX
"A respected songwriter and solo artist with a background in a variety of genres, so one can always expect a surprise when Karen Mack walks in the room... something designed to make others feel good and to make others smile!" - S. Mosher, BroadwayWorld.com
"Like bolt lightning, she electrified the stage from opening to encore... she sounds like a combination of Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks - the perfect vocal instrument for jazz, rock, country, and all points in between. Can this gal sing!"
J. Hoglund - Backstage
"It's a sound you want to hear fronting a first-rate band, and that's just what she's got behind her... Mack can knock anything with a rock beat out of the ballpark... Besides being naturally funny, she's so generous she passed out song sheets that supply songwriters' names and their websites."
D. Finkle - The Village Voice
"A sterling instrument! She has unerring good taste in her musical choices and wisely lets the lyric speak for her in simple and understated interpretations.”
David Hurst, Show Business
”Mack's voice is a thing of beauty with a rich, lush, inviting tone that somehow works equally well belting rock standards or performing the most frivolous of the era's love ballads.” Mona Finston - Cab Hotline
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My first CD produced by the ever awesome Michael Holland back when I fancied myself an eclectic acoustic rock star (also avail. digitally at iTunes, but from me you get old school "hold it in your hand" and maybe a surprise or two.)
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