ABOUT NANCY HARMS:  A Musical Biography...
By Arne Fogel

In a relatively short time, Nancy Harms has distinguished herself as one of the most uniquely gifted new young jazz vocalists on the East Coast. Born and raised in the tiny Midwestern town of Clara City, Minnesota, Nancy had no exposure to jazz as a child, no connections to the music via family, education, or fortune.  Though she was singing for small public gatherings by the age of four, it wasn't until attending Concordia College in Moorhead, MN that Harms discovered jazz.  The discovery changed her life.  Here is where her musical story began, and a passion was born.

There was no immediate decision to pursue a performing career after college, however.  Instead, she taught elementary music in another small  Minnesota town for a few years. This, after all, had been the plan; the safe move: it was "what was expected" of The Girl from Clara City.  What Nancy and her friends & family hadn't counted on was her ultimate disillusionment and discontent, combined with the growing conviction that another kind of musical life awaited her.  She followed her instinct and her passion, left her teaching career, and moved to Minneapolis.

From that point on, Nancy immersed herself in Minneapolis-St. Paul's local jazz scene, and by as early as 2006, people in the community had begun to take notice of her.  In the most positive sense, no one had ever seen or heard anyone quite like Nancy before: She possessed a stateliness that was unmistakable, yet she was totally unpretentious in manner.  She sang ballads with a folk-like, delicate, ethereal quality and a marvelous way of digging deep into the layers of lyrical meaning.  Initially, however, her most noteworthy attribute from a jazz perspective was her sense of time:  The girl could swing!  Of no small in importance to her growing popularity as well was the fact that she was uniquely beautiful, in both sound and appearance.

Nancy learned fast over the next three and a half years, honing her style and developing her chops.  Before long, she was a major attraction on the Twin Cities jazz circuit, regularly working in major jazz clubs and concerts, earning terrific reviews and critic's accolades (many of which can be found elsewhere on this website). In 2009 she released "IN THE INDIGO", her first CD and Minnesota's most popular jazz vocal release of the year.

Nancy's career in NYC began with a sold-out appearance in the summer of 2010 at the lovely and intimate "Bar Next Door" on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, with classy accompaniment by former Minnesotan Michael O'Brien on bass and NY guitar legend Paul Bollenback.  Observing her at this or any other recent engagement, it's fun to take note of the audience's warm response to Nancy and to study the Harms "Modus Operandi".  First of all, it's a highly original physical presence; a kinetic consisting of bends, kicks, and the unorthodox movement of hands and arms, all of which are in service of the music and telling the story.  The beautiful face is animated, but not overly so.  There is mystery there, with abundant smiles and good humor, but the occasional flash of something untold; a sudden downward tightening of the mouth and far-away focus of the eyes...  She seems to draw upon a passing sense-memory to more effectively convey the feeling of the lyric.  Often, it's a sense of hurt, or the pain of long ago; artfully intermingling with the good humor and inviting warmth of Nancy's overall persona.

Nancy's dedication to jazz is complete.  A few "pop" flourishes can be heard here & there (she did grow up in the 80s & 90s, after all), but it all ultimately reinforces her conception of jazz, and now she lives it:  One doesn't just suddenly "do" jazz, just because it's the cool thing to do.  You are born with the ability to sing, to hear pitch, and to affect the micro-tonal slurs and blue nuances need to inform the idiom in whichever form of the jazz vocal art you choose to follow.  And- importantly - you either "breathe" Swing, or you don't. Once again, one has to be born with this ability.  You can't effectively teach it to someone who doesn't have it in the bones.  Nancy is gifted with this ability in abundance.

Nancy's interpretations reveal her to be a fine actor as well, as she possesses a natural ability to movingly express the meaning of any song.  In addition to all of this, she has revealed a skyrocketing learning curve, which makes it especially exciting to contemplate exactly which direction the music will take her in the future.  Stay tuned!

Her CD "In The Indigo" has put her on 140 radio and cable outlets in dozens of markets, and top sales on the CDBaby Jazz vocal chart, "Chart-bound" on the Jazz Week chart, and named as "...the brightest new star of the Twin Cities' jazz scene" in a recent Minneapolis-St Paul Star-Tribune critic's poll.  The CD is receiving national airplay on "PRI's "JAZZ AFTER HOURS", NPR, THE PENTHOUSE RADIO NETWORK, and MUSIC CHOICE via satellite, cable and internet.

Nancy Harms: Beautiful, unique, and exquisitely talented.  A truly charismatic, one-of-a-kind performer.

-- Arne Fogel, vocalist, historian, broadcaster (KBEM-FM 88.5 FM, Minneapolis, MN)