She takes this deft conceptualism even further on Cole Porter's "I Concentrate on You," framing her delicate a cappella vocals with nature sounds, including a seagull's call and waves softly hitting a beach. The closest the idiosyncratic singer/songwriter had gotten previously was her brightly attenuated 2009 Doris Day tribute, Normal as Blueberry Pie, which found her investigating songs heavily associated with the iconic actress and singer. Thats solo in all senses of the word: McKay accompanies herself on the album. Given her jazz-influenced sound and knack for thoughtfully chosen cover songs, it's surprising that Nellie McKay had never released a complete jazz standards album until 2018's smoky, intimately rendered Sister Orchid. One could almost take her whistling intro "How About You" for granted until she brings it back, whistling along with her vocals at the end. The track comes from McKays forthcoming solo album, Sister Orchid. That said, the minimalist vibe belies McKay's knack for conceptual, almost cinematic presentation. Even when she goes for a more robust arrangement, playing bass and ukulele on "Accentuate the Positive," the result sounds pleasingly spontaneous. In particular, her swaying take on "Up a Lazy River" evokes the feel of relaxed summer's day as she sings while strumming a ukulele. There's a laid-back, bedroom cabaret quality to these performances, as if McKay is flipping through one of her favorite song books and giving off-the-cuff takes on songs that catch her fancy. Along with singing, she also plays all the instruments here, accompanying herself at various times on piano, ukulele, bass, Fender Rhodes, and even Theremin. As with Sister Orchid, here McKay performs a handful of beloved classic songs in a distinctly spare style.
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Preview, buy or download songs from the album Sister Orchid by Nellie McKay on iTunes.On the heels of her atmospheric 2018 standards album Sister Orchid, singer/pianist Nellie McKay offers an equally lowkey and misty follow-up EP with 2019's Bagatelles. An impish desire for impropriety underscores her treatment of Bob Dorough’s “Small Day Tomorrow,” while a sepia-toned “Everything Happens to Me,” seemingly set inside a crowded piano bar, perhaps best captures her essence: a cunning blend of Blossom Dearie’s slyness, Julie London’s smokiness and Lee Wiley’s sophistication. What begins as a straight-ahead treatment of “Willow Weep for Me” jumps, at the two-minute mark, to a fevered pitch, the stride-driven passage peppered with tribal-esque wails, before settling back into wistful introspection. Still, there’s plenty of room for McKay’s offbeat imagination.
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Inspired, as she suggests in the liner notes, by the heady variegation of an overnight drive down the California coast, she then travels from a noirish “Angel Eyes” and fogbound “Where or When” to tender readings of “The Nearness of You,” “In a Sentimental Mood” and “Georgia on My Mind,” plus a breezy, ukulele-propelled “Lazybones.” The irrepressible McKay enters this all-standards playlist astride a calliope-driven carousel, her whirling “My Romance” evincing Peggy Lee. Like Bleckmann, an inveterate genre- and era-blurring genius, the British-American McKay has shaped a marvellously checkered career: She’s as infatuated with disco, rap and rock as she is with pop and jazz she’s equally at home alongside David Byrne, Laurie Anderson or Fatboy Slim and she’s equally skilled at celebrating Frank Zappa, Doris Day or transgender pianist and bandleader Billy Tipton. If Theo Bleckmann has an equal among fearless vocal adventurers, it is surely Nellie McKay.
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