Kat Gang ‘BOSSA & BORDEAUX’ | GRAMMY Performer 2026

Known for her smooth, expressive voice and effortless sense of swing, Kat Gang has long been a fixture in the jazz world. Today, she solidifies that with her latest album, BOSSA & BORDEAUX.

Drawing inspiration from classic jazz traditions while adding her own modern flair, Kat brings warmth and sophistication to the album for a sound that feels as cozy as a velvet-lit evening in your favorite wine bar. Featuring a collection of acoustic jazz standards, the romance of French chanson, and the effortless sway of Brazilian bossa nova, the album is full of understated elegance and emotional depth.

With subtle nods to Édith Piaf and Antônio Carlos Jobim, BOSSA & BORDEAUX blends timeless melodies with a fresh, modern intimacy.

At the heart of BOSSA & BORDEAUX is a richly textured acoustic quintet featuring Kat Gang on vocals with Matthew Sheens on piano, Pat Brennan on guitar, Phil Palombi on bass, and Matt Chiasson on reed instruments, woven together in a soft and stylistic production mixed and mastered by David Darlington that favors nuance over spectacle. The album was born from their weekly performance at The Nines in New York City, as they soon realized they needed to somehow preserve the collaboration, generosity, and magic that happens when gifted artists gather with open ears and open hearts.

The recordings were never meant to feel polished to perfection or distant from the listener. Kat wanted them to breathe. To sound human. To capture the feeling of musicians listening closely to one another in the room—allowing space, silence, warmth, and vulnerability to become part of the music itself. Every musician on this record brought extraordinary sensitivity, artistry, and soul to these arrangements. What you hear is not simply performance, but trust—a shared understanding of restraint, lyricism, and emotional honesty.

The resulting arrangements are spacious and cinematic, allowing the emotional honesty of the songs—sung in French and Portuguese—to fully bloom. BOSSA & BORDEAUX drifts effortlessly between smoky Parisian chanson and sun-drenched Brazilian rhythm, creating a world that feels both sophisticated and deeply personal. Every brush of the bass string, every breath through the reed, every suspended jazz chord feels intentional and alive. It is music for slow evenings with a quiet longing—an invitation to linger in beauty.

Led by vocalist and bandleader KAT GANG, the project reflects years of devotion to the jazz tradition and a lifelong fascination with the emotional storytelling of international song. Educated at Berklee College of Music in Boston and Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Kat has performed globally, touring in the UK, Italy, Israel, and Russia, and held residencies at The Plaza Hotel and Birdland Jazz Club in New York. She spent seven years studying music at the Royal Academy in London, England, has performed twice at the GRAMMY Awards with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, traded fours with Bobby McFerrin at the Blue Note Jazz Festival, and currently holds a residency at The Nines with her quintet.

A fixture in intimate jazz venues and late-night performance spaces (and also a mother to three daughters, two cats, and one guinea pig), KAT GANG brings a rare sincerity to her work—blending technical artistry with vulnerability and warmth. She has performed at various prestigious jazz clubs including Birdland, The Iridium, 54 Below, and numerous performing arts centers. Her performances often evoke another era while remaining unmistakably contemporary, drawing listeners into a world where language, mood, and melody dissolve into feeling, all of which can be heard on her previous albums Copycats & Wannabes (2008); Dream Your Troubles Away (2014); Love and the Lack Thereof (2016); and Come Closer (2018).