Nora McCarthy's Page

Real Full Name

Nora McCarthy

Literary Pen Name

Margot Elizabeth Meyers (for music reviews only)

Nationality

American

Languages

English

Country of Origin

USA

Country of Residence

USA

City of Residence

New York

Biography

Singer, Vocal Improviser, Composer, Lyricist, Poet, Actor

An important force in the advanced New York jazz vocal scene, Nora McCarthy is a highly original singer, lyricist, composer, poet and educator. She and her various groups work at the top jazz venues in New York and elsewhere in the world. "McCarthy's musical roots are vast and varied, crossing cultures and genres - from the Great American song book to contemporary modern jazz and bebop, early rhythm and blues, funk music, Hawaiian and Brazilian music and in recent years she's embraced - and been embraced by ‘the avant garde’." Florence Wetzel, All About Jazz - NY

Currently, Nora leads and co-leads several groups: The Nora McCarthy Qu 'ART' et; The ConceptualMotion 20-piece Orchestra; A Small Dream In Red - Voice and Saxophone Duo; and, The ACE (Afro-Caribbean-Experimental) Collective with alto saxophonist, Jorge Sylvester.

POETRY:

Over the years, her ever increasing need to expand her own musical consciousness and convey a spiritual awareness through the music has been the main focus of her creative projects and poetry. Nora has penned lyrics to several jazz standards as well as for other musicians on the local scene and she is becoming known not only as a wonderful lyricist but also as an outstanding poet.

Nora is a featured poet and the assistant to Master Conductor, Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris' A Chorus of Poets. She has performed with the Chorus since 2004. The Chorus has performed at creative venues throughout NY including, Zebulon, The Brecht Forum, The Stone, Tribes Gallery, The Living Theater, The Issue Project Room, and in 2009, The Vision Festival.

In April, 2008, Nora was delighted to be asked to perform at Flushing Town Hall’s first Jazz & Poetry Marathon, “Other Worlds, Other Words” alongside several outstanding artists from the world of jazz and literature, i.e. Julio Marzan, Michael Mossman Quartet, The Nat Jones Quartet, Ray Ramirez, The Asian Poets Collaborative, and the Poets Circle from New York’s five boroughs, which included Mireya Perez, Madeline Artenberg, Berty Barranco, Mark Blickley and Iris Schwarz.

Poem #1

WHITE STROKE
Kandinsky’s Concepts
by Nora McCarthy, ©2006

“ form without content
is not a hand,
just an empty glove
full of air.

Just because an artist uses “abstract” methods,
it does not mean
that he is an abstract artist.
It doesn’t even mean
that he is an artist at all.

Just as there are enough dead triangles
(be they white or green),
there are just as many dead roosters,
dead horses
or dead guitars.

One can just as easily be
a realist academic
as an abstract academic.
Just Because……

Poem #2

RESOLUTION

still can’t find the solution
to resolve the resolution
this is the bane of my existence
and the crux of my confusion
my confession is the reason
I forgive my absolution
for giving me the conviction of
a foregone conclusion
and though I walk in the valley of death
I'm not a sinner
and not a saint
just one more visitor
who can't escape
the consequences
of all the mistakes
that were made for evolution's sake

Poem #3

I'M GLAD I'M NOT A CAT

I’m glad I’m not a cat
attack attack attack
chasing after tails and strings
and anything that moves
sneaking around corners
hiding underneath chairs
waiting hunting
marking a territory
then having to fight for it
sleeping all day
hunting all night
jumping leaping flying through the air
climbing the walls of domestication
shadow boxing sparring with imaginary foes
eating mice
and rats.
especially that.

Poem #4

PIANO JAZZ
Nora McCarthy 1-2007©

Zero
One Two
Three Five Eight
Thirteen Twenty-one Thirty-Four Fifty-Five
Eighty-four One Hundred and Forty-four
it goes
on it goes
on and on goes on
forever.
There are no mistakes
there IS a logical reasoning mechanistic process in place
behind existence.

Italian mathematician
Fibonacci ruled
that the determined
have a guaranteed presence
in this random universe.
I contemplate
the relevance of this information
and its impact on our universal concept of
oneness and self,
too precise to be happenstance
too exact to be a game of chance
it’s brilliance manifest.

Algorithmic thinking from a 13th Century genius
who found a sequence built upon the premise
that each number is the sum of the two that precede it
making sense of the order
and form of things
found throughout nature and art
in the petals of flowers
and arrangements of seeds
in the spirals of horns and shells and bees
and the creative works of Leonardo da Vinci.

Piano Jazz is the art of all of these
in musical theories
of 88 subdivisions
with limitless denominators
limitless keys
heard throughout its history in
big bands like Basie’s
and swinging Ellington’s Mood Indigo and in Bessie’s blues
and Lena’s Stormy Weather
and Moody’s Mood
it’s all the same song
the sounds of strings
and howling horns
the beat of the rhythms - the pulsating drums
the rustling of Autumn Leaves
whispering trees
Softly as in a Morning Sunrise
and Horace Silver’s Peace
co-existing simultaneously--,
there are no mysteries
only discoveries.

I’m hearing
the harmolodic melodies of Ornette
peering through a configuration of sticks called
Piano Jazz,
A sculptural masterpiece.
of beautiful truths
and simplistic complexities reflecting the underlying
connectedness we all share within our virtual reality.
Out of nothing comes everything numerically
defining the matrix in which we live
and answering the question
does God exist
there are no secrets
only hidden revelations
(i10n`?
?
??>
the patterns respond yes.

Poem #5

CONSTRUCTION OF THE HERE AND NOW AKA THE IS
By: Nora McCarthy ©2009


The element of change that distinguishes the old from the new must be introduced by altering the state of Is-ness.
What isn't has become old thusly Was.
Was is past tense spent.
Was is empty.
Was has no energy except to drain in an effort to replenish self.
Was is a vampire that seeks out the light and life of the Is
is the Now of the spontaneous nano-moment
in an effort to recreate itself, to become, to live as it were to be - or not to be - is was.
Was is and can only be an echo - not unlike a black hole except that even a blackhole has a definite definition which is to bring it into the Now,
and at the same time simultaneously reincarnation-ally exponentially also was into the same frame,
then, if Is and Was are interconnected and at the same time polar opposites
then it would stand to reason that Was is what once was Is is NOW no longer Now as it Is and can never be Was
but without one or the other couldn't exist since
what was is Is was once Was.
Is IS energy flowing, Was is energy spent -
energy then being life and death in the present moment Now activates both.
The concept of energy thus equals movement but without stillness movement doesn't exist
because you cannot measure something against nothing you can only measure something against something so therefore nothing is something in and of itself.
New then becomes old which then becomes new and Was is continuously moving changed altered transformed and forming into more Is as equal participating members of the eternal cycle of life and death without each none would exist and none can't exist if by its very nature it is empty and void of Is -
co-existence of both then are necessary for realization to take place in the Now.
So massive is the universal NOW that it is ever expanding and pulling into itself -= a centrifical force a vortex, in the eye of an unfathomably immense cosmic storm coming through the eye of a needle.

Website #1

http://www.noramccarthy.com

Website #2

http://www.thezenofsinging.com

Website #3

http://www.myspace.com/noramccarthymusic

Website #4

http://www.myspace.com/asmalldreaminred

Website #5

http://www.myspace.com/conceptualmotionorchestra