BIO

Talk to Harmony Keeney about music and you’ll hear about time. The passage of time fascinates her. “I’m in wistful awe of it. I think it stems from my close relationship with my grandparents when I was a kid. I was so intrigued by the idea that they had once been children too.” Born in West Virginia, Harmony grew up in a family where music was a natural bridge between generations. At a very young age, she embraced the songs her parents and grandparents taught her – children’s songs, hymns of the church, popular songs from the early 1900s, folk songs from the farm or the mountains – songs of the past. Even then, they aroused in her a yearning for love and truth, beauty and happiness, for simplicity in a complex world. “Those songs could sort of string time together, connecting my childhood to theirs, me to them.”

Time, for Harmony, remains at the emotional core of music. “Why does something move me? Because it’s fleeting. We long for it to stay, but time passes, things change. There’s always something lost and something gained. On the most fundamental level, it’s about the joy and mourning of life and death.”

When Harmony was eight years old, her family relocated to North Carolina, eventually settling in Chapel Hill, where she spent her middle school and high school years. She continued to be surrounded by music, particularly her parents’ eclectic record collection, where she heard contemporary artists such as Quincy Jones, Dolly Parton and The Manhattan Transfer, alongside legends like Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown. She loved the sound of jazz immediately, but it was not until high school that she discovered the standard repertoire that would become her passion. “For me, the songbook standards had the same honest feeling of the songs I had learned as a young child, but there was also a sophistication and complexity – all the gray areas of adulthood. It was a music I wanted to grow into.”

Harmony went on to major in music at Appalachian State University in the mountains of North Carolina. There, she studied voice with Dr. Joe Amaya and was a standout in the school’s Jazz Vocal Ensemble under the direction of saxophonist, Todd Wright. A great deal of her formal training also came back home, in private lessons with jazz pianist, Ed Paolantonio. Under Ed’s instruction, Harmony studied the phrasing of Billie Holiday and memorized Lester Young saxophone solos. “I think the most important thing I learned from Ed was the need for silence. We imitated horn players, never guitarists or pianists, but people who have to breathe when they phrase. You have to breathe – even if you don’t have to breathe – to make it musical. It creates space to think and it creates rhythm. It gives the element of surprise and it gives peace. Silence is just as big a part of phrasing as sound. It all comes back to how you fill the time.”

Harmony planned to move to New York right after college to pursue a singing career, but when graduation day arrived, she opted instead for a safe return home. During that time of doubt, she came across a World War II ration card, which listed her grandmother’s age, weight and height from all those years before. They were exactly the same as her own. She had an intense feeling of connection and understood in a profound way that “we each have our time in this world, we each have our chance to live.” The experience fostered a renewed commitment to singing. She started working at clubs in the area and recorded her first album, “This Time It’s Love.” In the end, Harmony felt that those extra years before her move to New York were invaluable. “I gigged with Ed and other world-class musicians. It opened my ears and gave me a comfort level that would be harder to get in New York. By the time I moved, I wasn't intimidated and didn’t feel I had a lot to prove. I had worked with good people and could hold my own.”

Harmony’s move to New York was as difficult as a move to New York should be, but she slowly met people in the business and realized that “in a lot of ways, New York is a very small town.” She produced her own show, which she thought of as “just a fun evening” until several months later, when opportunities came from those who had seen it. “I got to sing at Jazz at Lincoln Center, which was completely surreal and wonderful. I went straight from that into doing the lead in an Off-Broadway show called “Our Sinatra,” which just fell in my lap because the producer had seen my show.”

Hearing Harmony today, one has the palpable sense of an artist finally reveling in her true passion. “I love where I am right now. I’m done with the day-job, and I’m focusing solely on music. The experiences I’ve had since moving to this city have helped me come into my own. I’ll be growing into this music for the rest of my life, but I’m excited about where I am and where I’m headed. I have a strong sense that this is my time.”