Jazz singer Tierney Sutton has the gift of uncovering the nuances of a song’s lyric as well as the rainbow of colors in its melody. New evidence: her six-night July engagement with her band—two shows a night, none a duplicate of another—at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, in the Frederick P. Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Tierney’s band itself is far more than backup: it’s a powerful, integrated component of each song, thanks to the talents of Christian Jacob on piano, Kevin Axt on electric bass, and Ralph Humphrey on drums.

At the show we caught, Tierney, seated on a tall stool, her long blonde hair flowing as she leaned into the microphone, offered unique jazz readings of such songs as “I Get a Kick Out of You” (fast and fun, with a dynamic interlude by Jacob), a syncopated “On Broadway,” a mellow “Last Night When We Were Young,” and, mining a song from the decades-old Bloomer Girl, “The Eagle and Me,” featuring powerful solos by Axt and Humphrey.

Offering a preview of her new folk-song album, she combined the folk song’s basic simplicity with her own jazz decorations. Examples included a gentle and haunting “Shenandoah” combined with “The Water Is Wide,” with the latter featuring a solo by Axt playing his bass with soft mallets.

At Dizzy’s Club, the audience, facing the stage, also faces wall-to-wall windows behind it, revealing—for the earlier of Tierney’s two shows—the slowly darkening city. With Tierney’s mellow “Happy Days Are Here Again,” song and sky blended into a fine finale.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
July 20, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org