Cabaret Scenes Review - Tierney Sutton Band

To say this band is a seamless working unit is a gross understatement. Seventeen years of collaborating on arrangements has created a cohesion other jazz bands can only aspire to. Celebrating yet another Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Jazz Album, Sutton and her virtuoso compatriots Christian Jacob on piano, Ray Brinker on percussion and Kevin Axt on stick bass sailed through immaculate arrangements of pure jazz covers of popular standards and a few ballads for counterpoint. Cole Porter’s “It’s All Right with Me” and “Whatever Lola Wants” from Damn Yankees personify the band’s quick-paced deliveries and Sutton’s knack for using her vocals and scat abilities as a fourth instrument. Her gentle staccato styling adds a rhythm that plays off Brinker and Axt’s backbeats. A perfect example of this style was a duet between Sutton and Brinker on a sensational cover of Billie Holiday’s trademark, “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.” Sutton remains faithful to the melody of these standards while adding the spirit of improvisational jazz. The jazzy blues number, “Cry Me a River” (originally written for Ella Fitzgerald), had one of the band’s most incredible arrangements – soaring, yet grounded in the emotion of the lyric.

Sutton and the band deliver popular tunes in their inimitable jazz style, utilizing unusual time signatures. She remarked how people may come to hear the musicians and she just happens to be there. Modesty aside, The Tierney Sutton Band is a potent double threat. Cabaret folk get to hear their beloved staples (Rodgers and Hart’s “Where or When,” Harburg, Rose and Arlen’s “It’s Only a Paper Moon” and Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You”) while enjoying the instrumental and vocal freedom they infuse into each number. Ending the set with Billy Barnes’s beautifully understated saloon song “Something Cool” — think a female version of “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road”) — The Tierney Sutton Band made their Rrazz Room debut a sparkling, transcendent musical statement.

Steve Murray
Cabaret Scenes
March 30, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org



	The Tierney Sutton Band Rrazz Room San Francisco, CA
To say this band is a seamless working unit is a gross understatement. Seventeen years of collaborating on arrangements has created a cohesion other jazz bands can only aspire to. Celebrating yet another Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Jazz Album, Sutton and her virtuoso compatriots Christian Jacob on piano, Ray Brinker on percussion and Kevin Axt on stick bass sailed through immaculate arrangements of pure jazz covers of popular standards and a few ballads for counterpoint. Cole Porter’s “It’s All Right with Me” and “Whatever Lola Wants” from Damn Yankees personify the band’s quick-paced deliveries and Sutton’s knack for using her vocals and scat abilities as a fourth instrument. Her gentle staccato styling adds a rhythm that plays off Brinker and Axt’s backbeats. A perfect example of this style was a duet between Sutton and Brinker on a sensational cover of Billie Holiday’s trademark, “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.” Sutton remains faithful to the melody of these standards while adding the spirit of improvisational jazz. The jazzy blues number, “Cry Me a River” (originally written for Ella Fitzgerald), had one of the band’s most incredible arrangements – soaring, yet grounded in the emotion of the lyric. Sutton and the band deliver popular tunes in their inimitable jazz style, utilizing unusual time signatures. She remarked how people may come to hear the musicians and she just happens to be there. Modesty aside, The Tierney Sutton Band is a potent double threat. Cabaret folk get to hear their beloved staples (Rodgers and Hart’s “Where or When,” Harburg, Rose and Arlen’s “It’s Only a Paper Moon” and Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You”) while enjoying the instrumental and vocal freedom they infuse into each number. Ending the set with Billy Barnes’s beautifully understated saloon song “Something Cool” — think a female version of “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road”) — The Tierney Sutton Band made their Rrazz Room debut a sparkling, transcendent musical statement. Steve Murray Cabaret Scenes March 30, 2010 www.cabaretscenes.org

The Tierney Sutton Band

Rrazz RoomSan Francisco, CA

Rrazz Room
San Francisco, CA