She’s with the band
I’ve been a Tierney Sutton fan for awhile now, but this weekend I saw her perform live for the first time. And…wow.
From listening to her recordings, I already knew she had an innate musicality. And a fabulous band, guys she’s had the luxury of working with for nearly 20 years now. A few years ago, they celebrated their collaboration with a one of my favorite Sutton CDs, I’m With the Band.
Sutton doesn’t just sing a song, she lives inside the music. As a consequence, she doesn’t present herself like a typical singer: Instead of standing in front of her band, she sits in the midst of them - the piano and drums angled inward towards her, the bass player just behind. She is the fourth instrument in the quartet. Their sound is completely seamless, ego-free. It’s just music.
And what glorious music it is!
She sang several pieces that will be featured on her forthcoming album American Road, including a haunting “Shenandoah” combined with “The Water is Wide.” But for me the highlight of the evening was her re-imagining of “The Eagle and Me” from Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen’s show Bloomer Girl. Sutton transformed this piece, which I’d always found a rather silly song, into a jazz classic. Fingers crossed that’s on the album, too.
Sutton recently posted a demo of a new project she’s working on, a collaboration with Mark Summer, the cellist of the Turtle Island String Quartet. Enjoy their take on Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want” - and go see Sutton and her band whenever and wherever you can.
