Sara Gazarek © Andea Canter

Just a few years ago, Seattle native Sara Gazarek was deep in college studies at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. Named by Downbeat as Outstanding Collegiate Jazz Vocalist, she soon found herself touring with Oleta Adams, Karrin Allyson, and Diane Schur, and a new client of the famed William Morris Agency. At only 23, Sara had a major label CD, Yours (Concord, 2005) and a national tour. Poised to release the wide-ranging Return to You (Native Language) in early June with the same able cadre of musicians, Gazarek will continue her spring tour this week with stops at Catalina’s in Los Angeles and Rossi’s Blue Star Room in Minneapolis.

Sara Gazarek (pronounced guh-ZAHR-ick) cites a number of influences in her growth as a jazz vocalist, particularly Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, Ernestine Anderson, Sarah Vaughan, and Kurt Elling, as well as Count Basie and Oscar Peterson. She began vocal studies with the great Tierney Sutton at USC in 2000. Notes Sutton, “I knew the first time I heard Sara that she was the most complete and natural jazz singer I had ever heard at her young age. Tone, time, intonation, intelligence, and that rarest of qualities in a young singer – TASTE – she’s got more than she needs to be a great success.” While at USC, Sara also studied with pianist Shelly Berg and bassist/bandleader John Clayton, and had the opportunity to teach a jazz choir of elementary school students. This sparked an interest in jazz education which Sara continues to pursue through a national awareness program for the Music for All Foundation. And despite her busy touring schedule, education is still a priority, as Sara and her band find time to offer clinics at area high schools wherever they visit.

Sara Gazarek

Listening to Yours, it’s hard to remember this is a debut recording of a singer barely out of her teens. The voice is near perfect in the same vein as Jane Monheit, but with a lower pitch and timbre more akin to Karrin Allyson, with less smoke and a bit more honey. As such her voice seems equally suited to jazz, folk, and pop, and all of these elements come through on Yours. Unlike many “hot” singers of her generation, however, Gazarek can take the song out of the cabaret and into the most demanding jazz club and meet the challenge. Her emotion and phrasing tells us that she has long listened to the greatest jazz vocalists, and indeed seems to be on a trajectory to reach the top of the genre.

Return to You features Sara’s LA-based band, Josh Nelson, piano; Erik Kertes, bass; and Matt Slocum, drums. Where Yours was steeped in standards, Return to You includes compositions from Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Harry Connick Jr., and Gillian Welch, as well as four originals from pianist Josh Nelson, who displays considerable gifts as a composer and lyricist. Notes Sara, “Our live performances are very different from the record. We do a lot more up-tempo and swinging material. But we felt secure in the base we'd created with Yours and wanted to explore some of our other influences. We wanted this album to have a flow, and a sense of purpose, and we feel the listener will be able to pick up on the part of our souls we gave to this album."

Gazarek has already proven herself to be a talented jazz singer. With Return to You, she may well push that label aside, proving herself to be, simple, a talented musician, one with apparently limitless potential.

Sara Gazarek will be on the bandstand at Catalina’s in Los Angeles on Monday, April 23^rd (www.catalinajazzclub.com); next weekend she returns to Minneapolis for a night at Rossi’s Blue Star, April 28-29 at 7 pm (www.bluestarjazz.com)