Since her days at Southern California University’s Thornton School of Music, Gazarek has volunteered her time to give back to the community. She helped create the curriculum for an ongoing program known as JazzReach, and the following year began to teach the same material to inner city elementary school children. Today, despite a rigorous tour schedule and her stature as a critically acclaimed jazz vocalist, Gazarek acts as the sole ambassador for the non-profit organization Music For All. The jazz singer and her band conduct free clinics at schools in the towns and cities where they have gigs. She says, “Everybody in the band understands that we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that one educator, and this is our opportunity to give back.” 

No doubt, Gazarek’s former teachers, including USC’s award winning Tierney Sutton, John Clayton, Shelly Berg and Carmen Bradford are proud of the attitude with which Gazarek approaches her craft.

Talking about her studio efforts Gazarek says, “With our first record Yours we wanted to make a statement that we are serious jazz musicians who are going to be around for a while. We took a couple of risks but we also wanted to make something that people would respect, and that they would (consider) us seriously. I think that we built a really solid foundation with that record.”

Gazarek and her band comprised of pianist and fellow songwriter Josh Nelson, drummer Matt Slocum and Erik Kertes (bass) bring many musical influences to their music which resulted in Yours receiving top ten notice for several categories on a number of charts in America and abroad. 

She notes, “I grew up listening to Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney and a lot of other musicians. Everybody else in the band, even though they have degrees in jazz studies, have many musical influences. It wouldn’t be musically genuine for us to deny that. With this record (Return To You), we took it upon ourselves to find songs that we love or to find songs in which we could incorporate the sounds that we love. While Yours featured the Joni Mitchell tune “Circle Game”, for Return To You we looked for another Joni Mitchell tune that we liked and that one was “Carey.”

The Leonard Cohen tune “Hallelujah” appears on the CD Return To You and unveils a sultry side of Gazarek’s vocals.  There have been numerous covers of the Cohen tune and Gazarek and company wanted to provide a new twist to the song, so they went in search of a rumored obscure verse penned by the songwriter.

“I started purchasing different versions of Leonard Cohen’s song at record stores and at I-Tunes. Every time I sang, “Hallelujah” (previously) people would come up to me and say, ‘That is so amazing, what is that about? I don’t understand it.’ The thing that I like about the verse that we found is it really ends the story. I think it leaves the listener with a sense of satisfaction about the songwriter instead of a sense of longing and wanting to know what it (the song) is about,” says Gazarek.

The verse that Gazarek added to “Hallelujah” is the last stanza which says, “I did my best, it wasn’t much / I couldn’t feel so I tried to touch, / I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya /” Gazarek says of the last verse, “It makes it clear that this is about a relationship, and they tried but just like religion it cannot be forced. You cannot force faith (or love).”

The singer admits to, “Songs with really intense lyrics appeal to me. Songs like “And So It Goes,” which really embody what you feel, songs that simply paraphrase what you are feeling when something happens to you. “And So It Goes” to me embodies how it feels when you have really screwed up and open up to somebody. “And So It Goes” uses a lot of metaphors, but it still embodies how it feels when there is a change in a relationship. Songs that paraphrase how I feel when something happens to me or songs that I have a connection with such as one that a camp counselor sang to me, or my mom sang to me when I was growing up, or I went to this person’s concert when I was five and I loved the song, (express how I feel).”   

While acknowledging that the CD Return To You does indeed provide the listener with an opportunity to experience many facets of her vocal abilities Gazarek says, “We tried to make a cohesive sound for that record, even if I manipulated my voice to make it sound a little bit different on each tune. If you come to our live shows, it is even more so. We do a lot of up tempo stuff and really hard hitting jazz, as well as some blues. What we really wanted to do with this record (Return To You) is make a set of songs that flowed together. For me it is about bringing the lyric to life and a big priority is making the arrangements reflect the message of the songs.”