Nellie McKay

Nellie McKay returns to SFJAZZ for the first time in over a decade with music from across her career including standards from her 2018 album Sister Orchid and 2020 EP, Bagatelles.

From the release of her acclaimed debut Get Away From Me and her breakout performance at the 2004 SXSW Festival, McKay has moved from strength to strength, touring the world innumerable times, recording eight albums, appearing on Broadway in The Threepenny Opera, and performing on the late night shows of David Letterman and Conan O’Brien as well as NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion and Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. Of late, she has written a trio of musical portraits dedicated to “infamous” women Barbara Graham, Billy Tipton, and Joan Rivers.

Her most recent releases, 2018’s Sister Orchid and 2020’s Bagatelles, are her most personal and moving recordings to date — each presenting an intimate program of standards recorded entirely by McKay herself.