Tierney Sutton
I’m With the Band
(Telarc – 2006)
by Matthew Robinson
Scatting her siren song, sultry chanteuse Tierney Sutton snaps into a shifting “Softly As in a Morning’s Sunrise” before inviting her live and lively audience to “Face the Music and Dance.”
And though you can’t hear them tapping their toes (thanks in great part to a hi-fidelity stage recording and expert production by Elaine Martone), Sutton and her titular (and talented) “Band” (pianist Christian Jacob, bassists Trey Henry and Kevin Axt, and drummer Ray Brinker) dance through a gentle “Music,” a tight and accelerated “S’Wonderful,” an open and plainly-spoken “Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and a lush and inviting “Two for the Road.”
From a pianistic and percussive “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” to a bass-ic “People Will Say We’re in Love” and from Rodgers and Hammerstein to the Bergmans and LeGrand, Sutton works her educated and emotive magic on magical works of old and new masters, taking her appreciative audience on a musical journey that leaves themwishing they could press “play” again when it ends.
One should only be so lucky! ©2006 M. S. Robinson, ARR