Review: Zane Carney Is Exquisite Live in Concert at The Green Room 42

Zane Carney is an extraordinary guitarist, singer and songwriter who comes from a family filled with extraordinary talent: His brother Reeve is a Broadway star with similar music skills, and his sister Paris is also a singer-songwriter. Their mother, Marti Heil, is a costumer and jewelry maker, and their great-uncle was the actor Art Carney, best known as “Ed Norton” from The Honeymooners. Despite their exceptional talent and good looks, they remain remarkably humble and down-to-earth offstage. The close-knit Carney family were all present, along with Reeve Carney’s new wife Eva Noblezada and her family.

Carney has collaborated with the likes of John Mayer, Thundercat, Avril Lavigne, Natasha Bedingfield, MIYAVI, Joshua Bassett, Joe Jonas and Justin Timberlake. After a recent performance with his latest band, Evan + Zane (with actress and singer Evan Rachel Wood), Carney returned to The Green Room 42 for an entirely solo show on July 28.

Carney appeared in casual rocker attire with his signature Höfner Jazzica archtop guitar. He played a long intro with an echoing, ethereal sound before singing his original tune, “Something in the Water,” in a sweet, high tenor. Carney is quite expressive, both when shredding on guitar or singing a lyric. The emotion of the lyrics is written all over his face. He switched between some trippy, distorted power chords and virtuoso picking with some evocative chord progressions. 

When Carney tells anecdotes of touring or the stories behind his songs, he has a nearly shy affect, adding to the feeling that he’s invited us into his private studio to share his latest creations.

“I Wanna Have Faith” is a beautiful ballad, with introspective lyrics, almost as if he put a diary entry to music. Carney’s use of multiple line clichés and suspensions added harmonic tension, with chord choices masterfully matching the emotions of his lyrics.

Carney played only two covers in this performance. The first, “Cry Me a River” (Arthur Hamilton), showed his jazz-master virtuosity, with an improvised guitar intro. His handling of this classic was spectacular, both instrumentally and vocally, and again showed a deep connection to the lyrics. He used a looper to record an impressively constructed bass line, then comped over it. At times here, he seemed to conjure Wes Montgomery’s guitar style with octave doubling and no pick. This is one of the best renditions this writer has heard of “Cry Me a River.”

Using the looper to add more voices and a chorus effect, his “Ever After” is a sad, deceptively simple song that brought to mind R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” His melancholy refrain of “I don’t believe in ever after” was a punch in the gut. Much like “looper master” Ed SHeeran, Carney is a master of using technology live to build a song in layers right on the spot. He made the parts sound improvised, though they were most likely carefully crafted and rehearsed. [After reading this piece, Carney informed me, "I actually improvise all those loops!" Crediting his AP (Advanced Placement) Music Theory teacher for his ability to compose live on stage, noting that one of his favorite things in his solo sets is "seeing where my hands take me and letting little mistakes and ideas inspire the next moment and building up that.") Later in the piece he added Pete Townshend-like power chords. It takes much focus and skill to pull this together on the spot, and Carney nailed it. In other songs, like "The Bird and The Sky," he also utilized more traditional techniques like “drop D” (tuning the low E string down a step to D) to modify the sound.

The most unusual and wonderful piece was the aforementioned “The Bird and The Sky,” which Carney based on a field recording of a now-extinct Hawaiian bird. The melodies are direct transcriptions of the bird singing. Carney’s voice here was exquisite. He led the audience in a call-and-response of the bird’s melodies, with the women taking the high tones and the men taking the low tones. 

The second cover of the set, U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” also in drop D tuning, was a song he first performed on The Voice (he lost “… because it was too good”). He told a marvelous story of playing guitar in John Mayer’s band in 2014 in Japan.  Getting on his hands and knees to work the loopers and pedals into a full orchestration, Carney could now sing without playing more than an occasional note. Excellent as Carney's originals are, his reinventions of the two covers were breathtaking.

Carney surprised by moving to the piano for his penultimate song, “Patch of Old Snow,” based on a Robert Frost poem he heard a decade ago and set to music. Though the recording will have “like 50 guitars,” here it was just Carney and his piano, with stunning voicings, later taking it to a minor mode, then dissonant chords before returning to the main melody. The piece had a Lennonesque feel, if sung by Robert Plant. On a long, powerful note, “CONTROL…”, his vocal control was in full command, and there was a huge reaction from the audience.

Carney ended the night with his “Fade to Black,” a minor key blues lullaby with a vaguely Mexican beat, which he took to a power rock solo where he seemed on the verge of exploding.

This was a truly unique performance by Zane Carney. By combining excellent, mostly original material with virtuoso guitar chops, excellent vocal skills and brilliant use of technology, Carney knocked it out of the park all by himself (aside from the club’s “Sheridan on lights and sound”).

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For more information about Zane Carney, visit www.zanecarney.com. For more great shows at The Green Room 42, visit https://thegreenroom42.venuetix.com.

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