Hilary Gardner - The Great City (2014/2019) [Hi-Res]

Acclaimed singer Hilary Gardner grew up in Wasilla, Alaska infatuated with New York City. In 2010, Hilary was chosen by the Frank Sinatra estate to appear as the live, onstage singer in Tony-award winner Twyla Tharps Come Fly Away. Backed by a 19-piece big band, Hilary sang solos and duets with Frank Sinatra in a performance hailed by critics as wonderful (Huffington Post), elegant (USA Today), and terrific (New York Observer).

I’ve always been a New Yorker at heart, despite my Midwestern roots and upbringing in rural Alaska. My life as a New Yorker officially began, however, one sunny spring morning in a Greenwich Village bookstore. I was browsing the shelves when a gentleman struck up a conversation; upon learning that I had only recently moved to the city, he bought me a copy of E.B. White’s 1948 essay, Here is New York.

“I want you to have this,” he said, pressing the book into my hands. “I hope you’ll love New York as much as I do.”

Grateful and somewhat stunned, I opened the book as the man departed and came upon this passage: “No one,” counseled E.B. White, ”should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.”

E.B. White’s advice was (and is) sound. New York City can infuriate, mystify, exhaust, and delight a person—sometimes all in the same day. Serendipity abounds, though, if one is simply willing to be lucky, which is the story at the heart of The Great City, my first solo recording.

In literal and abstract ways, these songs form a narrative of life in New York City, replete with its myriad contradictions, complexities, and moments of unexpected beauty. I humbly offer you this album in hopes that, as a kindly stranger once said to me, you’ll love New York as much as I do.

" . . . an absolutely first-class singer. She swings effortlessly without making a big deal of it, and she has a knack for hunting down off-center tunes . . . Yet she's just as adept at making something fresh and surprising out of an oft-heard chestnut." (Terry Teachout, author of "Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong" and "Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington")

"The album has both variety and consistency . . . the capper is 'Chelsea Morning' enlivened with Pan-American percussion and transformed into a mashup of Joni Mitchell and Ahmad Jamal." (Will Friedwald, The Wall Street Journal)

Hilary Gardner, vocals
Tatum Greenblatt, trumpet
Jason Marshall, tenor saxophone
Ehud Asherie, piano
Jon Cowherd, Hammond C-3 organ
Randy Napoleon, guitar
Elias Bailey, acoustic bass
Jerome Jennings, drums

Recorded and Mixed by Joe Marciano at Systems Two Recording Studio, Brooklyn, NY
Assisted by Max Ross & Zak Kazanski
Mastered by Gene Paul at G&J Audio
Produced By Eli Wolf