Singer's Nineties Tunes Have Thirties Flavor

Insight on the News, August 2, 1999 by Eli Lehrer

The lead singer of the Squirrel Nut Zippers has formed her own jazz/swing band and captured an audience that ranges from the parents of the baby boomers to college students.

More than any other individual, Katherine Whalen can take credit for the surprising revival in popularity of early 20th century music styles. A singer with the jazz/swing band Squirrel Nut Zippers, Whalen's Betty Booplike appearance, flighty, untrained voice and powerful stage presence played a major role in the mass popularity of a band devoted to a musical style whose main constituency has vivid memories of World War II. "Neo-swing," as some called it, sounded more or less the same as the old stuff but brought humor and worldliness to a style that had seemed hopelessly square to many young people.

Coming off a period of intense recording for Squirrel Nut Zippers, Whalen formed a group of talented jazzmen (including husband and fellow Squirrel Nut Zipper James "Jimbo "Mathus) and recorded Katherine Whalen's Jazz Squad, an album full of jazz standards such as "Sugar" and "That Old Feeling." Although her most recent act has a reasonably low profile, Whalen's performance has received pretty good reviews, a sharp contrast from the mostly negative press that greeted the two most recent Squirrel Nut Zippers albums.

Insight caught up with Whalen performing in the Recher Theater outside of Baltimore. During the performance, a subdued, older crowd greeted the singer -- a stark change from the college kids who sometimes made up the audiences at Zippers concerts. "I was as surprised as anyone that all of this became popular," Whalen says. "We started out as some friends trying to play thirties jazz that we liked and suddenly people decided that it was cool. It's something I never expected."

Insight: Why do this latest album? What motivated you to redo songs that so many have heard before?

Katherine Whalen: Just to learn. Really the whole project was sort of a music school that Jimbo and I went through together. We took these songs that we really liked and had listened to on old records and got together some people who could help us play them. I used the experience to become a better singer.

Insight: So what did you learn?

KW: That's sort of hard to describe. A lot of minor new techniques, perhaps, things about how to feel the music and move around and different ways of hitting a certain note. It isn't always something you can put a finger on. Doing these things and listening to old records of others doing them helped me. You imitate to a certain point and then you start doing your own thing and trying to make it better or at least more interesting. That's the essence of what I do and that's how I get better.

Insight: You are the only woman in both the Squirrel Nut Zippers and in Jazz Squad. What's that like?

KW: Being the only woman in an all-male band is about what you'd expect. I have my husband there and that makes some difference. But there are a lot of strange things that go on and sometimes I'm right in the middle of it. There are a lot of jokes.

Insight: Both on this album and on most of the Zippers albums you have made a point of using older equipment and recording techniques. What's the point of not using the latest digital electronics?

KW: Where it helps us, we do use a lot of the fancy equipment. But we make some exceptions. We use old microphones since a lot of the time they can get you a warmer sound than one of the newer ones, though if it's not done just right it can sound pretty crappy. We're also interested in old recording styles like using two different microphones to get everything rather than some new technological whizbang. Often, you get a much less processed, much warmer sound. The technology can help but getting a good, warm sound isn't always easy, and sometimes the most perfect sound isn't the best for what we are trying to achieve.

Insight: One can even hear imperfections and missed notes on most of the albums you've done.

KW: Yes. I mean, if we really screw up, we don't use it; but if you do it that way and don't insist on editing and producing it to death, you get a version of the song much closer to what you would get in a live performance. It's warmer and more accessible. What I like about a lot of old records is that they have an intimacy that you often lose in more modern recorded performances. Tiny errors are often the things that make the music sound most exciting since, well, not everything is perfect. A lot of my favorite records are recorded on this really old equipment and have all this feedback in them, and even scratches, but it's great music. Exciting.

Insight: Do you prefer records to CDs?

KW: A lot of the best stuff just isn't on CD, so I'm glad that I have a record player and still can buy records at garage sales and so forth. But mostly, like everyone else, I'm buying CDs now. It's a lot easier in most ways.

Insight: Rightly or wrongly, Squirrel Nut Zippers gets associated with the neo-swing movement. How would you describe your musical style?