Hailing originally from Nebraska yet long settled in Brooklyn, vocalist Hilary Gardner delivers polished, city-wise readings of jazz and Broadway standards alongside country and folk material. Her first release, The Great City, appeared in 2014; two years later she issued the intimate The Late Set alongside pianist Ehud Asherie. Gardner helped establish the close-harmony group Duchess and took part in Twyla Tharp’s Broadway staging of Come Fly Away. After issuing a 2019 collection devoted to songs by the Bird and the Bee, she explored her country heritage once more on the 2024 Western-themed set On the Trail with The Lonesome Pines.
Raised in Wasilla, Alaska, Gardner started singing early and belonged to the Alaska Children’s Choir. During adolescence she worked local clubs, focusing chiefly on country repertoire. Her formative listening ranged across Patsy Cline, Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell, and Tom Waits. She pursued formal vocal study and sang with the Anchorage Opera. Relocating to New York City in 2003, she trained in classical voice while supporting herself as a waitress and building a professional singing career. As a solo artist she introduced The Great City in 2014, a tribute to her new hometown that included pianist Ehud Asherie, guitarist Randy Napoleon, trumpeter Tatum Greenblatt, and additional musicians. She and Asherie reconvened for the spare duets record The Late Set in 2017.
Beyond her own projects, Gardner performed in the 2010 Broadway production of Twyla Tharp’s Come Fly Away and appeared as a jazz singer in Errol Morris’s 2017 documentary Wormwood. She also co-founded Duchess with vocalists Amy Cervini and Melissa Stylianou; the trio has issued three albums, received Jazz Journalists Association Vocal Group of the Year honors in both 2021 and 2022, and was voted Best Vocal Group in the 2021 Jazz Times Critics’ Poll. On the 2024 release On the Trail with The Lonesome Pines, Gardner returned to country-and-western swing, offering her versions of such Western standards as “Cow Cow Boogie,” “Jingle Jangle Jingle (I Got Spurs),” and “I'm an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande).” The sessions featured her ensemble directed by guitarist Justin Poindexter.
