Margo Guryan
Moonlit jazz & sunshine pop BORN 1937
Margo Guryan created a small, stylish body of work, mostly breathy ’60s pop rooted in jazz harmony, as evinced by a single, essential album, Take A Picture, which has grown in reputation over time. Born and raised in Queens, New York, pianist and singer Guryan studied at the Lenox School Of Jazz under teachers Bill Evans, Jim Hall and Max Roach. A 1958 deal with Atlantic revealed a limited vocal range that didn’t suit contemporary styles, though her songs were recorded by Chris Connor (Moon Ride), Harry Belafonte and others. She also wrote lyrics for Ornette Coleman. In 1966, she’d stopped writing and was working as assistant to master jazz producer Creed Taylor when she heard The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows, which transfixed her and inspired new compositions that would be covered by Claudine Longet, Harry Nilsson, Jackie DeShannon and Julie London. Her groovy Sunday Morning was a hit for Spanky And Our Gang. That success led to her gorgeous 1968 Take A Picture album for Bell, where the breathy, girlish delivery deemed unsuitable for jazz in the ’50s now made perfect sense. The LP flopped, but when it was rediscovered circa 2000 – championed by the likes of Saint Etienne and Belle & Sebastian – she enjoyed a late-career revival. Her final single in 2007, 16 Words, took
as its lyric 16 words from George Bush’s 2003 speech justifying the coming Iraq war. She also released, in 2009, a suite of 14 variations on the piano melody, Chopsticks. Jim Irvin