the mcduffie trio

Margaret McDuffie, jazz singer

Monday, June 5, 2017

Things are picking up speed again with a new show this weekend at The Tompkins Corners Cultural Center in Putnam Valley, NY. The space is a beautiful of converted church and we're bringing to it some gorgeous jazz standards and original written in the standard style. A second set includes some of my special blend jazz/blues, with a little of funk here, and a touch of swing there. Once again, excited to be joined by Steve Raleigh on guitar, T. Xiques on drums, & Jim Curtin on bass.

Come on out and join us! It's an easy drive from all points east west north and south, especially from the Taconic: it's just off the Peekskill Hollow Rd. exit.


Friday, January 27, 2017

Playing Dogwood bar & restaurant in Beacon tonight, Friday, January 27th!

Looking forward to a couple of sets of covers & originals. With events as they are lately, it's been good to finally get some of the topical stuff out there. Here's one that gives you an idea of what I mean. Feeling it, and funky.






Thursday, January 5, 2017

Upcoming shows in 2017


7:00pm on January 14th in the front room (entrance on Main St.) at the Towne Crier in Beacon, NY. This is on the town's Second Saturday, when all the shops and galleries are open late with openings, music, and other events. Stop by for a drink and a listen or to get some supper and settle in. We'll play a couple of sets. No cover.


8:30pm on January 27th at Dogwood Bar across Beacon town on East Main St. The new menu here is killer and the place has a lively pub atmosphere. It's a cozy stage but the sound in that room is really great every time. This show, like the one on the 14th, will be with the ever fabulous Steve Raleigh, Jim Curtin & T. Xiques. No cover but donations welcome.


Cassandra Studio

Some gigs are coming up again soon - January 14th & 27th, for starters - but there've been a lot of hours in the studio, lately, recording and mixing demos & tracks for what will the the 3rd and 4th records. While the 2nd is still in mixing stage. Yes, I'm guilty of overextending and proliferation, and all the charts and samples and demos and mixes are evidence. Swimming in it. But I've had a fantastic opportunity the past few years to hunker down and write and record a lot of material, and I've gone for it.

While finishing up a collection of standards and standard-like originals at Root Cellar Studio in Cold Spring, which by the way are gorgeous and thank you so much Todd Giudice, I began preparing to all the new songs, and brought them to a different studio to get a feel for how they would sound in a different environment. Rob Kissner at Cassandra Studio in Beacon has accommodated me while in the midst of mixing his own most recent record, and between us we've gotten down basic tracks for quite a few songs. The players I've roped into yet more of my music, Stave Raleigh, Jim Curtin and T. Xiques are as always brilliant and easy-going, and things sound really, really great.


An Old Favorite

Round about Christmas time last year I was tinkering around with some carols and came up with a chord progression for Good King Wenceslas that had a lot of major 7 chords in it, and a few minors. It was a mellow, jazzy sound, oddly compelling. It's completely different than the original, but the message is just the same, so compassionate and almost eerily vivid. Such beautiful simple lines. Anyway, I recorded it on my zoom late that night, and despite all its faults sometimes I find listening to it is calming and inspiring. This winter has been pretty unwintery so far, at least around here. That will change soon enough, but even without it I feel the need in the world for this compassion. I need to remember that empathy and courage are within us and can't be legislated out of existence. Sometimes music is a way to remember that.


Good King Wenceslas revisited - on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzygifKJ6vI


Tuesday, October 25, 2016

& Three Fine Gentlemen


After a year away, we are back at Dogwood in Beacon, NY, on Wednesday, October 3rd, with a whole bunch of new music. Joining me are Steve Raleigh, Jim Curtin & T. Xiques, three fine gentlemen with an excellent sense of direction through that special place in time and space that is blues, country swing, folk, funk and jazz. Listen in on this moment in the practice room - not bad, right? Come see them perform even more such alchemy with me at Dogwood on Wednesday night.

Margaret McDuffie & Three Fine Gentlemen
@ Dogwood Bar & Restaurant in Beacon, NY
Wednesday, October 26th at 8:30pm

http://www.dogwoodbar.com

See you there!


Monday, August 8, 2016

The Speakeasy Stage at the Towne Crier


It had been a hot day in the valley. Folks were looking a little dazed, but relaxed. I took the side stage by the bar at 9:30pm with Steve Raleigh & Jim Curtin, the faint sounds of another band through the far wall. It was the Towne Crier, but not as most think of it. There is a second stage at the Towne Crier. You enter at Main Street, with the bar to your right - a little separate - and tables front and left. There's a couch and chairs. The acoustics are really good. Better than I expected from a space not originally intended for a stage. It does have a speakeasy feel to it, like you can take a booth at the back and just be left to take it all in.
Undercover...? Because music is its own dimension - you can write and read it, but it still exists under cover of a kind of beautiful darkness, of an impermanence and invisibility that no one can touch even though we all course with its energy. And when the world gets too hot or too strange, or too tedious or too demanding, music gives mental shelter, a place to cool the mind so we can experience the heart.

And dig into unexpected challenges.

Speaking of which, as promised in last update, we played through lots of complex new arrangements like 'Bring Back That Summertime'. The guys killed it, and the space was really accommodating acoustically. I'd enjoy playing there again. The audience looked so content and chill, and it was great seeing everyone. Thanks so much for coming out after a long hot day. Hope it cooled your heels. Undercover might be seen again there next month. Stay Tuned.

Thank you, Towne Crier! Thanks to Phil and especially Miss Vickie.


Bring Back That Summertime


I brought along a stack of new tunes to rehearse for the gig on August 6th at Towne Crier's 'Speakeasy Saturday'. Jim & Steve were troopers and we plowed through all of it (I think it was fifteen new songs altogether). In the practice room I let the recorder run and caught this little gem. Now a slideshow on YouTube, next year it'll be a properly recorded song. Looking forward to that. Meanwhile, here's us in the practice room... enjoy!

CLICK HERE for link to YOUTUBE:
Bring Back That Summertime, practice room
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFc-6lpqIcY

This is the thumbnail you'll see online.
The video editing chose this thumbnail, and when I tried to change it, it wouldn't let me. I guess I can't argue with tiger lillies when it comes to an ode to summer...

Sunday, August 7, 2016

The Beautiful Bridge


I was back in the studio on and off over the winter recording more jazz tracks, and a fair amount of time at the piano writing. This is in some ways a traditional vocal jazz record of standards, except that half of them are original songs written in standard form. When I write standards I feel like I'm channeling. They write themselves, I am the interpreter. It's an amazing experience of listening and learning that I feel really lucky to have come naturally. Even as a kid I found myself singing entire songs as if they were being dictated by the ghost of some songwriter from the forties who never had their day.
But then a kind of song will come along that while it has the formality of a standard, is more intimate, more about the elemental experience of life on earth. More of my own voice comes through, my own thoughts.

There's one recent song that crosses the line between the two, the old & new, the cheekily romantic & the postmodern, a Bossa called 'Lost In The Blue', and I'm really interested to hear the response to it. In the spring, on the day of these photos, we were rerecording it. I had just added a tricky instrumental bridge where simple repeats had been. Steve, Jim and T. played a beautiful instrumental track. I’ve got a sample of it on my website music page (at the bottom) .

Jim Curtin, T. Xiques, Margaret McDuffie, Steve Raleigh



  
    



Dogwood Night

Logging this one, at Dogwood, September 17th  2015. It was a Thursday night with a close crowd and just the best feeling it the room. Thanks to Mark Murphy, Steve Raleigh & T. Xiques for a couple of perfect sets, and Joe Johnson, that sound was right in the zone.



Photos courtesy of Alison Rich.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

An Evening with KJ Denhert at The Falcon


Friday, July 31st, we'll be playing the opening set for KJ Denhert, one incredible songwriter, player and performer, at the Falcon in Marlboro, NY. A recipient of Independent Music Awards in years past, this July KJ won two IMAs, one for her 19th album Destiny, voted best Adult Contemporary Album, and one for her song "Beautiful" voted Best Jazz Song with Vocals!

I met KJ several years ago at the Listening Room in Cold Spring, NY. Her skill and affability blew me away. An easy-going way and a quick wit, she played beautifully and her songs were so well-written and delivered they stayed with me for days. I've been watching her go from record to record, touring more and more, smiling and ready for more all the way. It's a thrill to see her success and as you can imagine, a real pleasure to open for her.

Meanwhile, Steve Raleigh (guitar), Jim Curtin (bass) and T. Xiques (drums) and I have some new material to play along with some songs from the February 2015 release Under A Spell. Things are going great in the studio and we're really looking forward to sharing some of what we're up to.

For anyone in the region who can make it and is mulling it over - do it! The Falcon is located right beside a waterfall on a very deep ravine and is going to be one of the coolest places around come Friday evening. There's even a path leading down along the falls for those who need to take a break between songs and wander...




Friday, June 19, 2015

Grant Green was there

Wednesday night, after seeing the fantastic Ani diFranco play a great show at the Towne Crier in Beacon, I sat in with Art Labriola, Andy Stack & Otto Hauser at Quinn's. What a contrast! After the intense inspiring sounds of Ani, walking into the realm of 60's jazz organ at Quinn's and its lively mellow sound was really really cool. I piped "It Ain't Necessarily So", a tune that Art & I recorded a few years back just because. Revisiting that with Hammond was so engaging & relaxing. I want to pull all my Grant Green records out of storage and spend the weekend lost in that vinyl. Maybe a little Jack McDuff and Jimmy Smith, too.

Grant Green "It Ain't Necessarily So"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP1iyEUyHeI

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Right Back in the Studio*

This time (originally the first time - see footnote), I'm recording a collection of sweet mellow ballads & Bossas, some of them standards and some originals. Almost all of the instrumental tracks are done, and a few of the vocals. It sounds really great already. So much sweetness and nuance, different from the first CD, though this is the core trio of about half the songs on Under A Spell.

T. Xiques on drums & Jim Curtin on bass 
Nine of eleven tunes on the new record feature Steve Raleigh on guitar, Jim Curtin on bass, and T. Xiques on drums. If there was ever a music where you would most want to hear Steve's guitar playing, I like to think this is it. It's so musical, so subtle and lacking in artifice or irrelevant muscle. It's just exquisite. Jim Curtin brings his buoyant vibe to even the sleepiest numbers lending them a humor and warmth that makes them irresistible, and T. Xiques' sticks and brushes are sometimes whispering, sometimes tempering time, soulful always.

The last two songs are going to be recorded with piano - a late-40's standard and an original tone poem. Art Labriola is stepping in for this pair and despite their marked differences he works equal magic with them. Art composes and plays with lots of people but lately has been doing a regular set on  Hammond organ Wednesday nights at Quinn's in Beacon, NY, with Andy Stack. I'm planning to get to the next one, June 10th. Maybe I'll see you there....

Getting ready to make tracks with Art Labriola.

The Footnote

* A couple of years ago I went to make a jazz record and wound up writing the one I made, Under A Spell, which isn't jazz but something like it, and at the same time I was still recording some of the one I thought I would record, and was already halfway through that when the unintentional first one (Under A Spell) was finished. So I'm finishing up the one that was supposed to be first.