Brooklyn vocalist Hilary Gardner shares her birthday with poet, writer, critic, and wit Dorthy Parker. Gardner shares much more with Parker than a birthday. For example, both have a keen eye for observation that contributes to a sharp, piercing wit. Gardner expresses this wit in music. Her music wears several faces; one need only listen to her previous recordings to hear this. Sharing the stage with vocalists Michelle Walker and Whitney James, Gardner recorded the contemporary ballads album You’ve Got A Friend (JPG Records, 2014) where she is featured on “Estate” and “‘Tis Autumn.” Before that year was out, Gardner recorded her homage to New York City, The Great City (Anzic, 2014), a collection of songs featuring that great city and presented in the mainstream, down-the-middle way invented by the Big Apple.
In 2017, Gardner made a fine duet recording with pianist Ehud Asherie, The Late Set (Anzic), dedicated to after-hours musings and regrets. She plays the confident chanteuse to a T. Gardner then teamed with Charles Ruggiero and his trio for Play The Bird And The Bee (Anzic, 2019), a recital of in-your-face, sassy tomes to love, a wonderful kiss-off recording. Presently Garner takes a hard left from the mainstream into…what? Cowboy Songs? Yes, ma’am, that is exactly what she did, with confidence and authority. Having established her bona fides as a grand jazz vocalist it should be no surprise that Gardner excels at the edges of the genre.
If Western Swing is comparable to big band or orchestral music, then what Gardner does on On The Trail is small group chamber music. Backed by the crack quartet of strings specialist Justin Poindexter, bassist, Noah Garabedian, percussionist Aaron Thurston, and accordionist Sasha Papernik, “The Lonesome Pines,” Gardner makes her way through the heart of Western Cowboy Music. Gardner’s treatment of Benny Carter’s “Cow Cow Boogie” would have been recorded at Nashville’s Exello Records with Slim Harpo playing the phonebook. “I Got Spurs That Jingle, Jangle, Jingle” is a delight, played as if with a well-behaved Bob Wills echoing the singer in this briskly dispatched classic.
Rich Hall’s “A Cowboy Serenade” is performed as a drowsy prairie ballad infused with honey and morphine, not unlike what one would expect from the Cowboy Junkies. Gardner’s voice is perfectly balanced throughout this recital, buoyed by Poindexter’s exceptional and wide-ranging guitar playing. Poindexter also provides an organ continuo to most pieces reminiscent of those nostalgic Saturday nights in front of the old black and white watching the Lawrence Welk Show. It is just perfect. While a completely fresh performance, there is great nostalgia here for those of a certain age.
Gardner does not neglect that famous jazz standard, “I’m An Old Cowhand,” the very same one that Sonny Rollins performed on his notable Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957) which she delivers with grace and not a little humor and spunk. This is the type of release one hopes for, something totally unexpected and thoroughly enjoyable.