Suede defies categori-zation. Is she is a jazz singer, with a total respect for lyrics, or a cabaret performer with an un-canny knack for scatting, rhythmic and melodic im-provisation and the ability to vocalize a muted trumpet, with or without the trumpet at her
lips? Don’t seek an answer; just enjoy this lady’s handiwork.

Her patter eschewed the typical “Why I’m singing this song” style. Instead, she chatted with casual spontaneity to draw in her audience and make a connection. She treated us with her rich voice, sometime warm as brandy, at others cool as a Cosmo, with which she growled, warbled, and purred to enhance a lyric.

As diverse as her style was, her clever material was even more varied. It ranged from the folky “Puddle of Love” and the R&B treatment of “Teach Me Tonight”—on which she pulled out all the stops—to the rhythmically complex, naughty novelty song, “You Can Leave Your Hat On” (Randy Newman), that takes on new hues in this out lesbian’s hands.

But it’s the ballads that impressed the most. She fully inhabited “Little Trip to Heaven,” channeled Carmen McRae in “Caressing Me,” and demonstrated sophisticated phrasing and breath control in a sweetly rendered “Never Never Land.” With Freddie Boyle’s animated piano, and Chris Rathbun’s reliable bass, Suede was a non-stop tour de force with whom it was well worth taking the journey.

John Amodeo
Cabaret Scenes
April 22, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org