Tierney Sutton is one of the most cherished jazz singers on the circuit today as well as one of the most prolific. I must qualify this by saying that I attended one of her Master Classes a few years back and she was gracious and extremely helpful to all her students, helping them to achieve real jazz phrasing and to work organically with the band.

Disclaimer aside, I found the set I attended disconcerting.  Sutton warned us that we were going on an adventure and she and her band lived up to it. Unfortunately, I felt the journey was leading us out of our hearts and into our minds—a place where most “common folk” just don’t want to be.

Starting off with an exotic and melodic vocalize leading to "Fly Me to the Moon," her voice sounded clear and crystalline, young and soaring.  The problem was that she appeared introverted towards the audience and almost hyper-involved with her band.  If she was going to the moon, I would have liked to have been taken there with her!

She did let us in with and a crisp and nicely swung "I Get a Kick Out of You," with her pianist almost liquefying the piano with lovely and rich fluidity.  With “Haunted Heart” I started to feel alienated again, as her lovely vocals were overshadowed by a rhythmic and intrusive drum and overly fussy arrangements.  She could have touched me with a simple piano and voice rendition of “Haunted Heart,” but that was not to be and the evening’s tone was now set.

Following another overly rhythmic and distant “Cheek to Cheek” she really opened up the flood gates with a dark “Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets).”  The vocal, starting out pleasantly sinister, led into a cacophonous piano bit ultimately steering us into a hellish and twisted dark hole of sound.  Granted, she explained to us that Lola was the Devil and she was representing her as such.  She succeeded.

I was entertained by her driving but compelling “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.”  She pulled out the vocal stops showing us she could use full volume and knock us out with her instrument if she cared to.  It was pretty damn exciting.

Standards filled out the evening, many overly bent out of melodic shape and we were abused with a “The Lady is a Tramp” offered up by a band that admittedly had played it for too many weddings and Bat Mitzvahs. This over-the-top rendering revealed that as well as being a tramp the “Lady is a Psychotic.” 

Tierney Sutton is a lovely singer with top notch abilities—scatting, holding long notes, and rhythmic brilliance. I just ask her to come back down to earth and mingle a bit with us mortals and stop playing so much to her band.

Melody Breyer-Grell
Cabaret Scenes
August 21, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org