ALBUMS
THIS BE HER VERSE (2022)
ALPHA RECORDS: 2022. Song Cycle: THIS BE HER VERSE by Kathleen Tagg & Lila Palmer. Recorded by Golda Schultz & Jonathan Ware.
“The album’s title is from a new song cycle by Tagg, to texts by Lila Palmer. Commissioned by Schultz, they are deft, upbeat, sharp and true, a celebration of the single bed and clean sheets.”
Fiona Maddocks: The Guardian
“This be her verse, a three-poem cycle marked by skillful vocal writing, percussive effects for the piano (and not just on the keyboard) and poetry reflecting lived contemporary female experience, proved a highly fruitful commission, and should furnish not only Schulz but other sopranos with a bracing repertory staple.”
Opera News
“Composer Kathleen Tagg and poet Lila Parmer’s vibrant This Be Her Verse provides a welcome contemporary account of female experience. Commissioned by the performers themselves, the cycle riffs on Philip Larkin’s famous poem and fizzes with black humour and percussive energy, and Schultz’s voice by turns soars and stings…This Be Her Verse is an outstanding album: expertly programmed and performed with terrific verve.”
Kate Wakeling: BBC Magazine
“witty musical-like songs in the manner of Stephen Sondheim, which revolve around the question of what it means to be a woman in the 21st century.”
Frederik Hanssen: Tagesspiegel
”…the finest fit is Kathleen Tagg’s “This be her verse,” a commission for the program that, in addition to strummed piano strings, calls for suspended, ethereal high notes and carefree charm.”
Joshua Barone: New York Times
“This Be Her Verse provided the recital’s title and whipped up a suitable climax. To lyrics by Lila Palmer, the verses delve into aspects of a modern American woman’s life. The first song, ‘After Philip Larkin’, reflects on how demands from others may keep her from her own ambitions. The centerpiece, ‘Wedding’, commiserates with a bride left waiting outside her COVID-limited wedding by the groom and his best man. The finale, ‘Single Bed’, declaims an anthem for a defiant, intentionally unmarried woman.
While I was noticing how the music became more complex and varied as we moved forward in time from the mid-nineteenth century, and how it brought out more aspects of Schultz’s gifts, the evening had a more profound effect on my wife. She responded viscerally to the songs’ insights into how women can face the world differently from men, especially those by Tagg and Palmer. She is, like them, a modern woman.”
Harvey Steiman: Seen and Heard International
MAZEL TOV COCKTAIL PARTY (2022)
TABLE POUNDING RECORDS: 2022. With DAVID KRAKAUER
"Mazel Tov Cocktail Party is a breath of fresh air, an incentive to dance to klezmer music, (Krakauer's favorite playground); but also to polka, Romanian hora, calypso, Quebec square dance... "In the face of the overwhelming negativity and alarming rise of hatred and intolerance in today's world," let's breathe and dance together, Krakauer & Tagg proclaim in chorus. More than a suggestion, an injunction.
Patrick Labesse: LE MONDE
Do you want an amazing and nice mix? Like putting a Mentos in Coke... You take a rapper, some specialists in sampling and electro, a mad clarinet and you entrust everything to DAVID KRAKAUER and KATHLEEN TAGG. Listening to this music is a real outlet, spiritual and festive. A Calypso and a Polka come to visit us as curious little animals. Or the Mississippi Blues is crossed with a Middle Eastern Oud. ...Traditional tunes are passed through the mill of rock, rap and jazz creating a music of cartoons under strobe effects... Can make you addicted...
Pascal David: JUKE BOX DETOX
An informal cocktail party typically lasts a few hours, and this one ends all too soon. Clap your hands, do-si-do and allemande right to the urban beat, Krakky’s clarinet and the band’s fascinating rhythms. And when everyone shouts “Mazel Tov!”, as the title cut cues up, “Toda” (meaning "Thank You") would be our appropriate response.
Joe Ross: ROOTS MUSIC REVIEW: 5/5 Stars
Going from the electro beats and funky scratches of "Jammin' With Socalled", to the title track (where you would swear to hear Funkadelic and the Pointer Sisters jamming with Jimi Hendrix and Rabbi Jacob), through the cover of the Appalachian bluegrass classic "I'm A Poor Wayfaring Stranger" (.....transposed here in Ottoman mode), this album embraces multiple and crossed cultural heritages. Coming from an ecumenicisme, which is as much salutary as is crucial in our troubled times; this festive record actually does good where it hurts.
Patrick Dallongeville PARIS-MOVE
The latest in a production as varied as it is multiple, this festive album once again brings together New York clarinetist David Krakauer and South African pianist, arranger and composer Kathleen Tagg. After a magnificent 1st album in duo released at the end of summer 2020, D. Krakauer and K.Tagg create the Mazel Tov Cocktail Party Orchestra. This project, positive and bright, ..... is intended, in contrast to the deadly explosiveness of a Molotov cocktail, to illuminate the world with hope and joy. It is.....a very beautiful invigorating opus open to the world and life that David Krakauer and his accomplices give us there to whom we can only say: Mazel Tov! François Saddi: 5PLANÊTES
FEATURED ON:
NPR Morning Edition Feature (Jon Kalish): May 2022
RFI/Radio France Internationale: Musique de Monde Feature & Live Studio Performance (Laurence Aloir): May 2022
Le Monde Review: March 2022
BREATH & HAMMER (2020)
TABLE POUNDING RECORDS: 2020. With DAVID KRAKAUER
"...You almost have to take their word for it when they tell you it is nothing but clarinet and piano…”
- JOHN SCHAEFER (HOST OF WNYC NEW SOUNDS)
"Breath & Hammer is a masterful and joyous journey that rewards and delights the listener every moment of the way. I was beaming through the entire album, reinvigorated by the energy and imagination of each track and so happy to know that David Krakauer and Kathleen Tagg have made a musical adventure that pulls us out of the static isolated silence of our fraught time. They have found a way to give music a huge refreshing burst of energy only true explorers are able to give. They bound to ecstatic heights of fantasy and show us a new bright path forward."
- DAVID HARRINGTON (KRONOS QUARTET)
"The most compelling thing about this project from clarinetist David Krakauer and pianist Kathleen Tagg is the way three different sources culminate in one convergence. The influences of klezmer, modern jazz, and classical find any number of meeting points."
- DAVE SUMNER, BANDCAMP DAILY (THE BEST JAZZ ON BANDCAMP: MAY 2020)
FEATURED ON:
New Sounds on WNYC with John Schaefer
NPR Music: Best New Songs You've Missed During Quarantine
The Best Jazz on Bandcamp: May 2020
Mezzo TV: Top Jazz albums: September
Mundofunías: Mundofonías’ favorite albums for July and August 2020
WHERE WORLDS COLLIDE (2017)
TABLE POUNDING RECORDS: 2017. With ANDRE PETERSEN
KATHLEEN TAGG AND ANDRE PETERSEN'S WHERE WORLDS COLLIDE (2017):
" An open-minded mix of traditions, and the bravura technique they also share. The results are reflective and exuberant, by turns, and enormously enjoyable throughout."
- Jon Turney, London Jazz Times
“Captivating for its exploration of a myriad of sonorities… technical virtuosity and perfectly synchronized rhythmical complexity… Petersen and Tagg impress with their commanding opening flourishes where Petersen develops dramatic Intensity...offset against Tagg's sonic additions that invoke the sounds and smells of Africa."
–Jeffrey Brukman, CUE MAGAZINE
Where Worlds Collide was featured on New Sounds (WQXR) with John Schaefer. Four tracks from the album are featured alongside tracks by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Kronos Quartet, Derek Gripper & Guy Buttery.
FEATURED ON:
WNYC New Sounds (WQXR) with John Schaefer
London Jazz Times
Expresso Morning Show, ETV
CONNECTION:SONG CYCLES OF HEGGIE(2014)
NAXOS: 2014. With REGINA ZONA
“This is an exceptional program of Jake Heggie’s wonderfully varied songs. Performed together, the cycles make a strong statement about female strength and identity in a world that defines women through the men around them. Zona and Tagg are both excellent.
- Erin Heisel, American Record Guide
“Soprano Regina Zona turns in splendid performances in all songs….Kathleen Tagg makes a fine accompanist, skillfully negotiating the considerable melodic and rhythmic complexities in the piano writing, while maintaining a deft sense for dynamics and vocal/piano balance.”
- Robert Cummings, Classical NeT
Regina Zona and Kathleen Tagg as such sympathetic exponents.
- Richard Whitehouse, GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE
“There is fine, sensitive playing from Kathleen Tagg as well as beautifully shaped singing from Zona… Zona catches the bluesy opening brilliantly and revels in the transitions between jazz rhythms and the slower, bluesy style as does pianist Kathleen Tagg…”
- The Classical Reviewer
“Zona is at her best in lively numbers like [the “Indian Summer—Blue”]…where her voice takes on added focus, and her direct and slyly self-knowing delivery is the driving force…Kathleen Tagg is the excellent, expressive pianist.”
- Joanne Sydney Lessner, Opera News
“…Heggie reveals an adept handling of the voice-and-piano medium…it would be wrong to deny the ready appeal of these songs, not least with Regina Zona and Kathleen Tagg as such sympathetic exponents. Certainly…[listeners] will find much to enjoy here.
- Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone
Produced by Kathleen Tagg & Regina Zona
SOUL OF FIRE (2012)
LONG TALL WOMAN PRODUCTIONS: 2012. With ZANNE STAPELBERG
Piet de Beer, violin; Charles Lazar, bass; Frank Paco, percussion
“…This is music as a reflection of man’s madness. It is pleasure verging on pain. It is not to be listened to, it is to be felt, touched and eaten…It is Soul of Fire, one of the most remarkable musical productions yet to have emerged from South Africa…” - Darren Taylor, Voice of America
"If you have happened upon the term virtuoso before, I suggest you fold it away neatly when in the “closet blues” presence of duo Kathleen Tagg and Zanne Stapelberg. Words will fall short… an untamable, and unforgettable, venture…”
- Whats On in Cape Town
“An exhilarating sonic journey, “Soul of Fire” more than explores the music of Spain and Latin America; it enters into the vortex of the style …an ensemble performance that glittered with interpretative panache…"
- CUE Magazine