Sage Harrington

I’m Sage Harrington and I play American swing music on the ukulele.

I write songs. My singing voice is like a shiny silver bell.

I love lyrics that sound conversational and natural but also wink at you a little bit. I’ve also always loved a catchy melody.

I’ve never been content to sing about straightforwardly pleasant things. There’s always some kind of discomfort underneath the cheerful boppyness, and it’s always been my preference to crack jokes instead of wallow. There’s a resistance to being, hmm, shall we say, 100% earnest.

My current album-in-progress draws heavily on the form and structure of golden era jazz.

I love “discovering” the “lost” tunes that could have almost made it into the Great American songbook, but didn’t. A lot of magic can happen on the margins of the jazz oeuvre.

An old tune echoes through the years, rhyming with something I feel today. Rhyming with something I’ll feel tomorrow. Rhyming with something I’ll feel in 15 years when I finally understand what the singer meant the day they recorded it a hundred years ago.

I’m inspired by the delicate and precise playing of my favorite ukulele players. The ukulele is so easy to play, at any level of musical ability. It’s such a friendly and accommodating instrument. At the same time, I think it’s very difficult to play in a way that comports tenderness and a deep emotionality.

sageharrington.com