CHRISTYMERRY

Doree and the Dishes is the latest project of Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Christy Merry. A four-track EP of vintage-style hot jazz, the project represents a stylistic left-turn from Merry’s usual work in alternative rock and poetry. Here, Doree and the Dishes finds Merry weaving together various strains of old-school vocal jazz music - including hot club-style jazz, swing, brass band music and bebop - to create a slow-burning set of seductive tunes that are simultaneously hot and cool.

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Over its run-time, the EP uses a limited palette - pattering drums, lush horns, muted guitars and rumbling upright bass - to explore a number of styles and feels, all of which would be at home in an old New Orleans watering hole. Opener “It’s Like Rock” quietly slinks along, building up to a quiet explosion of brass fanfare. “The Great Juggler” features a dramatic vocal performance and an instrumental that pivots on a theatrically swinging acoustic guitar figure reminiscent of the work of Django Reinhardt. “What I Was Taught” returns to the big band ballad feel, this time with a hypnotically rolling drum part in tow. Album closer “Crazy” picks up the pace with sprightly drums and a driving guitar part that brings home the song’s lyrical motif of frustrated longing.

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Throughout, the EP mixes the new with the old. Overdriven vocals and vintage-style arrangements are combined with lush mixing and modern production touches. The music itself pulls equally from classic Dixieland artists like Fats Waller and more recent artists dabbling in old-time music such as Tom Waits or Hurray for the Riff Raff. That particular combination seems to be the essence of the EP.

 

Merry says: “The EP is named after my maternal grandmother who went by ‘Doree’. Legend has it she used to sing over the dishes like one of the greats. I don’t know that she ever performed in public or whether anyone ever heard her, but I feel like the world is probably full of unseen talented people doing mundane daily tasks.”

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- bio by Ali Jaafar