| THEATER TIMES DIALOGUE TIERNEY SUTTON |
INTERMISSION 15 minutes with ...
Tierney Sutton
In a field of contemporary jazz singers, Tierney Sutton stands out for her individual
take on tunes and her unusual commitment to her group. She has succeeded in
blending a rare voice and rarer ego with four A-list musicians for 15 years and seven
CDs -- Christian Jacob on piano, Ray Brinker on drums, and Trey Henry and Kevin
Axt alternating on bass.
The L.A.-based Tierney Sutton Band's most recent recording is 2007's 'On the Other
Side,' a collection of songs connected by a theme of happiness ('I Want to Be Happy,'
'Get Happy,' 'Happy Talk,' 'Happy Days Are Here Again,' etc.), but arranged across
the full spectrum of emotions. This occasionally makes for some probing
interpretations as slow, sad rhythms undercut lyrics about good times.
The breakthrough disc has been getting very good response as selections from it are
performed live in concert. In October, the tour heads down the 405 to Costa Mesa
and four shows at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. In researching an
article for The Center's Revue magazine, I sat with Tierney at the Jerry's Deli in
Encino (which, for disclosure purposes, was a Dupar's the last time I was there).
Over coffee, the 15-minute Intermission concept ran over until this Dialogue became
the length of an entire 90-minute play.
CRIS GROSS Let’s start with the band's two bass players. Both are shown in the cover photo of
the live 'I'm With the Band' album, but you don’t say who plays on what track.
TIERNEY SUTTON It’s just a mixture. We basically alternate. Sometimes they both played one thing.
But we played four live sets over the course of two afternoons at Birdland and in the course of
those four sets there are some things that only one of them played ever. In the end they just wanted
to be selfless and express that it doesn’t really matter. But people sometimes [mistakenly] think both
of them are playing on songs.
On the new record both are playing on a lot of things. So we figured it would be better to just explain
who’s doing what.
Usually when we tour we only have one bassist. I’m not sure whether we’ll have both of them in
Costa Mesa. I don’t know. It just depends. Anything is possible. We try to be in the moment.
CRIS GROSS It’s tough to describe how in the moment your music is.
TIERNEY SUTTON It’s like describing a painting.
CRIS GROSS But there are groups that have that in the moment sound, no matter how many times
you listen to their records. Start with The Beatles, and part of the reason they sound so different is
that there is a sense of entitlement each of those guys had. That within the structure they can all . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON Be themselves.
CRIS GROSS Yes. Be themselves. And that’s rare that band members have the kind of equality of
ego and then the spontaneity and musical intelligence to take advantage of that chemistry.
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s it.
CRIS GROSS So it feels spontaneous.
TIERNEY SUTTON I think you hit the nail on the head. You know they’re my legal partners. It is The
Tierney Sutton Band. They make as much or as little money as I make in whatever we do. We are in
it, up to our necks, together. And there’s really no separation for any of us. We also have full
autonomy in terms of creating what part we play and editing each other in terms of what the others
do. We have this consultative process that we go through when we arrange things, where we
musically consult and then we verbally consult. So we’ll play through the thing and then we’ll have
lunch the next day and one of us will say ‘You know that felt a little funny on the bridge’; ‘What do
you think about how that interacts with that?’ And 99 percent of the time, two other people will say ‘I
felt exactly the same thing. Let’s address that. Let’s try something to smooth that out.’ So there’s a
really unbelievable quality in this band where we all have a very strong sense of what we sound like
as a group, but we also have a sense of what our roles are in it.
We’ve all changed how we play and I how I sing by being in this musical relationship. And we’re
happy to be influenced by each other. So it’s this kind of combination where you’re in the moment
because you know – at least in my case – I know I’m going to get great ideas from them. So why
would I not pluck those up with everything I’m worth? So I want them to bring what they are to the
table. It would be foolish not to say, What do you think about this? How does this sound to you? And
in going through that process really interesting things happen in the arrangement. And then we know
when we’ve got it. And we also know we’re done: ‘Okay, that one’s done.’
But even when they’re done, they evolve. They keep changing because somebody does something
in the moment.
On the new record the structures themselves are set up to be much freer. So, those really can be
dramatically different in the moment: where things happen, the amount of bars, the dynamics, how
long my phrases are. Everyone has a lot more choice because we’ve been listening to each other
now for 14 years and there’s so much trust that everyone knows that we’re going to catch each
other.
CRIS GROSS And you’re not necessarily the one who’s going to call the change on the stand.
TIERNEY SUTTON Noooo. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
CRIS GROSS So anybody can be the one to indicate they have an idea and want to try something . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON Absolutely. And there’s actually some strange little things built into the
arrangements where there’s a call and response thing and sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s the
bass player, sometimes it’s Christian on piano. Sometimes it’s the drummer.
CRIS GROSS Essentially you have stretches where anybody can signal for a lane change and
everybody’s watching for blinkers . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s right. And it’s certainly not me who does the signaling. In fact a lot of
times I prefer when it's not. I like to react. And to me that’s what jazz is supposed to be. It’s
supposed to be communication and reacting to the moment to something that happens that’s not
under your control and then hopefully having the ability to land on your feet. That’s where the fun
stuff comes.
CRIS GROSS You have a unique ability there, compared with other vocalists where the musicians
know they only have an eight-bar solo coming up. These guys are always active. The whole thing
is...
TIERNEY SUTTON The whole thing is. The whole thing is. And every piece of it reflects that. When
we do a sound check: the amount of time we spend listening to how everything is mic’d. The
balance of the trio in the room. I go out and in the room and listen to the balance of the trio. And then
Christian and I do a piano duet and the bass player and drummer go out in the hall and say, okay –
usually – they say the piano is not loud enough. Because what [the stage’s techs] do is make me so
loud that a lot of the musical things that we do are not able to be done to their greatest effect. Most
bands are not as sensitive and as dynamically complicated as my band. I mean we’ll create a set
based on the fact that the piano is not that good.
CRIS GROSS And that happens?
TIERNEY SUTTON Absolutely. And that’ll be our main concern. We’ll sit down and say, Okay,
Christian. You’re up against it tonight. Or if the bass amp is weird or if the room is really booming.
And we talk to the bass player and say what do you need?
CRIS GROSS What did you think of the Monterey Jazz Festival last year?
TIERNEY SUTTON It was wonderful. It was great. Our show was at 11:30 at night or something. It
was a really late show, but it was wonderful. There’s nothing like the Monterey Jazz Festival. It’s a
really special thing to do. That was our first time there.
CRIS GROSS One of the things about vocalese, I was surprised to find out that there are different
lyrics to all three songs that you do that also Karrin Allyson does – 'Con Alma,' 'Joy Spring' and
'Footprints.' Who did the lyrics that you sing in 'Joy Spring?'
TIERNEY SUTTON I actually am not sure. I was asking LaRue, Clifford’s widow, who lives here in
town, about that lyric and she said Clifford hated it.
CRIS GROSS Oh!
TIERNEY SUTTON I felt bad. But I’d already recorded it. I don’t know who wrote it. It’s funny. I’m
not a huge fan of lyrics to bebop tunes period. I think it’s sort of like gilding the lily. I think it’s really
hard for the listener to explore to that much.
CRIS GROSS I wouldn’t have said it, but that’s how I feel.
TIERNEY SUTTON And so I don’t do that much of it anymore. If I’m going to sing . . . I mean I’m
thinking of doing ‘Blue Rondo ala Turk,’ . . . . It ain’t gonna have no lyric if I sing it! Just to do those
things clean and to make them. . . . . I mean, there’s one recording that makes me a liar about this and
that’s the brilliant recording of ‘Freddie Freeloader’with Bobby McFerran, Al Jarreau, George Benson
and Jon Hendricks. And on that recording what they do, because they’re so amazing, is that first
and foremost, it gives the spirit of the solo they’re singing and after that they manage to fit that lyric in
in an honorable, groovy way. But almost no one can do it. So I do very little of it. I don’t enjoy it that
much. On the other hand, I actually love to do text-based improvisation. I would rather sing the
second or third chorus of something with the lyric and play with it and render it crazy, with the lyric.
There’s something about that in my brain that works better than just scatting.
CRIS GROSS Yeah.
TIERNEY SUTTON Just for me. Just the way my head works. And, it’s improvisation. There’s very
little of the original melody left by the time I’m done with it.
CRIS GROSS Well, you’re arrangements, particularly on the new record, are by no means locked in
to the melody.
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s true. A little bit here and there. But those things, you do at your own peril.
And it's very easy for them to sound cheesy I think. Very easy for them to sound . . .
CRIS GROSS Too ornamental.
TIERNEY SUTTON Too ornamental and sort of self-conscious. Not sound organic. And the only
recording that I know that really make them sound absolutely organic are like that ‘Freddie Freeloader’
recording of those guys, where they can do it and they can make it sound like they rolled out of bed
and that’s what they heard. Kurt Elling can do it to a certain extent, too. He does a great job on it.
But most people who do it, sound like doing an exercise . . .
CRIS GROSS More head than heart.
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah. And I want my audience to think but foremost I want them to hear
something that is beautiful and that sounds good.
CRIS GROSS Like it was meant to be.
TIERNEY SUTTON That it was meant to be. Not, ‘Oh listen to how clever that is.’ And we will talk
about that when we are doing the arrangements. One of us might say, you know this just sounds
too clever. We sound too heady here. We gotta bring it into the heart. Now, when working with
musicians of the caliber that I get to work with, they’re heart opens up the most when their head is
also engaged. It’s a full-on thing. Christian plays his most brilliant solos when he’s doing something
that is technically unbelievably hard. That is the way he works. In fact, I’ve been known to just go to
a show and say, well here’s the song I want to do, could you please transpose it . . . ah, a tritone
away. I give him some really hard transposition so that his brain has to work so hard to transpose it
that the most brilliant craft comes out.
CRIS GROSS It’s amazing for people who don’t know what you’ve got there and go, as I did the first
time, and I thought. . . . what’s going on here? I felt the same way when I saw John Pizzarelli and
there’s this unknown headliner over at the keyboard.
TIERNEY SUTTON You mean Ray Kennedy?
CRIS GROSS Yes, that’s who it was. I think there would be people who come to the show to see
Christian and say, who’s the singer?
TIERNEY SUTTON No question. People stake out tables right in front of the piano. Piano players
come to see him very frequently. You know we go up to San Francisco and Denny Zeitlin comes
down to see us. I mean, he likes my singing and all, but I know there’s a big part of them that want to
see one of the greatest living jazz pianists. Wants to see what this guy’s up to. And that’s true to
every guy in the band.
Very high level stuff. The fact that I’ve been so fortunate is never lost on me.
CRIS GROSS It’s weird to have it last for 12 or 14 years . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON It doesn’t happen. I don’t know anyone else, with the exception of Kurt Elling and
Lawrence Hopgood. The other members of the band have rotated, but he does have that long
relationship with Lawrence and the two of them have worked together for so long. But other than
that it’s really hard.
CRIS GROSS Christian’s Maynard Ferguson Presents album preceded your first album by a couple
years.
TIERNEY SUTTON Yes it did.
CRIS GROSS And you’ve been working together since before then.
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah. We went in to record it in ’95. And I had met the guys . . . I had heard
Christian and actually tried to hire him when we were all playing in Boston, but it didn’t work out. He
didn’t have a green card and I had a gig that required a Social Security number. I moved to L.A. in the
early '90s and quickly saw how many great jazz players there were. I met Ray and Trey when they,
with Christian, were the rhythm section in Jack Sheldon’s Big Band. I used to go to the union and
listen to Jack’s Big Band and just take notes on the songs Jack played and I love his singing and I love
his playing and that’s kind of how it started. And those guys were playing with him.
CRIS GROSS I think West Coast musicians get second-class status.
TIERNEY SUTTON Well it’s just ignorance. I mean, come on, Pete Christlieb? For crying out loud.
These guys are . . . I was listening to Peggy Lee’s ‘Mink Jazz’ the other day, and Jack plays on it,
and I’m sorry you tell me who plays better than that. Pony up and tell me who is playing on any
record that sounds like that.
We have the virtuosity in this town without the ego. And what that does is, you get on the
bandstand, and the singers who come here, and use pick-up bands in L.A., they know. Because
what happens is, you bring your sheets to your pick up band and it’s like the tenth guy you’ll call from
the L.A. studio scene will read down your chart like nobody’s business and make it sound better than
it’s ever sounded because the skill needed to make it in this town. They need to be in the moment on
the country record that you played on yesterday, then the jingle for toothpaste that’s like some kind of
hip-hop thing you played the next day, and then to work for this writer who doesn’t really know what
he’s doing but you make their stuff sound so good that they feel good about themselves . . . .
CRIS GROSS They get an award.
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s right, that they win an award, and that is what these guys do, day after
day after day. If there’s any training better for a jazz musician, I don’t know what it is.
CRIS GROSS When I heard Karrin at Catalina’s in advance of interviewing her, I didn’t know her
band so I thought I’d get a feel for them. The bassist and pianist looked similar so I thought she might
have brothers which would explain part of why the music was so tight: years of playing together
that preceded even being with her. Come to find out, her bassist had missed the plane and this was
a guy she’d never met who was called in at the last minute.
TIERNEY SUTTON And you would never know.
CRIS GROSS You would never know.
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s right. Her luck was that it happened to her in L.A. And because it
happened to her in LA. she had nothing to worry about. There are 25 guys in this town who could
have walked in and done that. And, the standard of how good you have to make it sound on that first
take, and how you’re supposed to serve the situation you’re in, it’s not about you being a star, so
what is the situation you’re in and how do you make it sound as good and musical as possible? And
that’s a philosophy that I think anyone who’s the star of anything starts to lose. And it’s a kind of
philosophy, but it’s a great philosophy and I think it’s that that made the guys in my band sound the
way they sound. They were so used to making it work.
CRIS GROSS Well, you've been well enough known to be on the cover of 'JazzIz.'
TIERNEY SUTTON I got JazzBeat, which is the radio international program I was on the cover of
‘JazzIz.’ And I’ve made the Downbeat Critics’ Poll, which I think is a huge accomplishment because I’
m on the West Coast. The only West Coast artists that get in that poll are John Clayton and me and
that'skind of it, which is kind of crazy. But it’s getting to do the thing that you love. I don’t know that
these guys would trade places with a l lot of the artists who maybe get that recognition.
CRIS GROSS Regarding the material, the Great American Songbook, is that a volume that is
expanding anymore?
TIERNEY SUTTON I’ll tell you, I think about that a lot. And my initial response is that it’s not expanding
very fast; it’s not expanding very much. Because of the difference in how music is made. And it’s
not a matter of ‘Oh the good old days when songs were good,’ it’s just different now. Because so
much of what goes on now is the art of production.
CRIS GROSS When you say 'now' do you mean the 21st Century or are you going back?
TIERNEY SUTTON From about 1970 on. For instance if you listen to a Stevie Wonder record, and I
used to listen to a lot of Stevie Wonder records, the songs are really perfectly honorable. They’re
good songs. But what makes them unbelievably great recordings are the arrangements, the horn
parts, the vocals . . . There are so many elements.
CRIS GROSS But when you take it down to the skeleton . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah, when you take it down to the skeleton it’s a good song but what makes the
soul of ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’ is the horn part. It’s just great. It’s great art. But it’s a
different kind of art.
Somebody asked Keith Jarrett years ago why he doesn’t record Joni Mitchell songs. Now, Joni
Mitchell is a genius, I love Joni Mitchell and there may come a time when I can figure something
honorable to do with something she does but it’s really hard. The art there is the song itself, but so
purely the song itself that it’s very hard to do anything to it. The requirements of a standard are two
things, that it have a structure that has potential to be messed with and that it has a structure that
isn't so closed that messing with it destroys it. That’s a very specific set of criteria in order for
something to be a standard. So a lot of times I’ll listen to a song and I’ll really like it, but I’ll think, ‘What
can we do with this?’ It’s too closed, it’s too finished. The I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed and
anything I would do with this would take away from what Joni Mitchell did.
Sometimes the structure is just too complicated. You know, there are too many parts of it. And how
would you do this without making it this great opus. Whereas if you take a little theme, like ‘You Are
My Sunshine,’ that everybody knows, you can ride that wave and sort of make this improvisational
thing about it, while the basic through line is something you’re really familiar with. That’s the other
element of a standard. If the audience is familiar with the song, you can really take it in a weird way.
It’s just a tricky business.
Now being at a point in my career where you know Johnny Mandel is a friend of mine, and the
Bergmans are friends of mine, I know some of these people who wrote these iconic songs and they
got more of ‘em, that nobody ever heard, and these are the masters, so you find this little gem by
Henry Mancini, like ‘Two for the Road,’ that’s not recorded very often. Or, I just found one by Johnny
Mandel called ‘Unless It’s You.’ Just this beautiful little touching gem of a song. These guys knew
something and the way that they wrote is so beautiful in terms of the art form that we do.
CRIS GROSS Well, if your band can’t convert the songs of the singer-songwriter era to standards,
nobody can.
TIERNEY SUTTON It could happen. It could happen. There are a few. I think about this a lot. I really
do.
CRIS GROSS Let’s talk about the new recording, ‘On the Other Side,’ which I think is at a whole
other level. I mean that in a number of ways: the synthesis of everybody, the arrangement risks,
there’s a little less ornamentation . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON More freedom.
CRIS GROSS A little more funkiness. So I think it’s a real classic. Not that anything was missing
from what you’ve done before. This just seems to open up on a new dimension.
TIERNEY SUTTON Well thank you and I really appreciate that. Because I think what happened when
we made this record for us was that we were all very frightened. We knew we were taking some
risks. We had performed this stuff live in a tentative order and it kind of fell flat, is the only way to
describe it.
CRIS GROSS Fell flat with the audience?
TIERNEY SUTTON Well, we felt like it did, but actually . . .
CRIS GROSS They just weren’t responding the same?
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah, I think people were kind of taken aback. So the thing was we got all this
feedback from our manager, who said, ‘I don’t care if you’re uncomfortable. This is important and
this is what you have to do.’
CRIS GROSS Oh, good. So she was behind it.
TIERNEY SUTTON Oh absolutely. And then we sent a recording of that gig back to our producer at
Telarc and she emailed back I don’t know if we’re going to sell any records but this is important and
you have to do it. And so that’s where it’s been really fortunate for us to have those kinds of
relations instead of the same old crap that artists get. So we were very fortunate in that regard.
But some of the feedback we got from supporters and our inner circle was, 'That really freaks me
out, hearing you guys do that.' But they meant it in a good way. And you have to do that. But it was
very scary. I knew that vocally it was going to be a very challenging record. I think that every time
we’ve made a record, with the exception of the live record. I have left the studio thinking, okay I think
we did it, but how am I going to do this live. I gotta grow into this material. And it’s okay, now I feel
confident about doing it on the road and it’s been going very well on the road and it’s not a problem.
But every time there’s this growth process. But that’s what keeps everybody in the band.
CRIS GROSS Well, now that you have the record out there people have heard it in anticipation. . .
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah. We’re stuck. Gotta do it.
CRIS GROSS But I mean, they’re primed for it now.
TIERNEY SUTTON Well, often they haven’t listened to it, so we’re just. . . . There you go! People are
buying it like mad at the shows. So they gravitate towards the new stuff. And I think it took awhile
before I kind of realized that we were really moving into a new place as a band -- redefining some
things. We didn’t mean to. We just wanted to keep ourselves interested. We were playing with the
forms in a way that, because of this 14-year relationship, a lot of bands can not. So we’ve invented
some new techniques in arranging, based on being able to do call and response with each other.
Just because of the way that we play together. So it’s been kind of exciting. But it’s been like
everything else for us. It’s been very organic. And by listening to everyone, and the fits and starts
and the worrying that maybe this is going to be horrible.
CRIS GROSS Well, given that it’s your seventh album and the one in which you seem to have taken
the biggest step, it's clear you're not just settling in and giving the fans more of what they’ve bought
before.
TIERNEY SUTTON That isn’t going to happen in this band. There’s no way that we would do that.
And I think that’s the gift of having this kind of band relationship. And, the gift of having that kind of
relationship with the mentality of L.A. musicians.
Somebody asked me at one point, ‘What’s your goal, in terms of your career or whatever?’ And I
realized that what it really is and it seemed very much what I thought was the goal of every jazz
musician that I knew and that was to make a record that in 50 years somebody would look back to
and say, ‘Oh this is a great record, have you heard this? This is really cool.’ Period. Not to sell a
million of them tomorrow. Not to be on Jay Leno. None of that is my goal. My goal, as I thought was
the goal of every jazz musician, is what do we do. We listen to ‘Kind of Blue.’ We listen to ‘Mink
Jazz.’ We listen to these records and we go, ‘Hey man, check this out. Isn’t this gorgeous?’ And
we're listening to these records 50 or 60 years after they were made.
CRIS GROSS So by making something timeless you’ve defied the whole mishegas.
TIERNEY SUTTON Defied the whole mishegas, the long-term sales you hope will be good, but you
don’t attach yourself to that because you know how crazy it is. You’re doing jazz for crying out
loud. This isn’t Britney Spears. I have no expectations of that kind of thing. So in jazz, that’s the
goal. So, to be in this process with other musicians who obviously have this same goal, that’s all
they're interested in: making sure that the next record does not repeat the last record.
We’re not going to do something the exact way that Nat Cole did in 1943. What purpose is there for
us to do that? It can’t be improved upon. We’re here to do whatever it is that we can that moves the
story forward. And that’s it. It’s not about reinventing what somebody else did because we think it’s
going to sell a lot of records.
The whole thing is a mystical enterprise. I mean our goal, when we sit down on a stage, is to have a
mystical experience. And we want the audience to have that too. But, first and foremost we want
to create a kind of a place where we're out of ourselves and if we’re really lucky, and I think one of
the reasons the band stays together is that in over half of our shows, we go there. And I know that’
s true in terms of doing it, but I don’t always get that it’s true for the listener. I don’t always get that. I
get nice fan letters, but
CRIS GROSS They’ve got to be there, too. The audience has to meet you halfway. But playing
music, as I say to people when they ask if I’m a good trumpet player, is, I can play good enough to
hear my soul. And that’s all I need. Because to me, the instrument summons up the wind, but the
chimes it blows through is the individual’s soul. That’s what gives music its individuality and its
spirituality.
TIERNEY SUTTON It’s essentially a spiritual enterprise. It’s not physical. It has a deeply physical
effect on us, and a psychological effect, but the deeper effect is something else. And to get in touch
with that makes you not want to make music any other way. The principle around which this band
runs has made it able to function in that way for all this time
CRIS GROSS Collectively.
TIERNEY SUTTON Right. And that unity that we feel when we’re doing it, that loss of self, that loss
of your personal self, which is what makes us free.
Tierney Sutton
In a field of contemporary jazz singers, Tierney Sutton stands out for her individual
take on tunes and her unusual commitment to her group. She has succeeded in
blending a rare voice and rarer ego with four A-list musicians for 15 years and seven
CDs -- Christian Jacob on piano, Ray Brinker on drums, and Trey Henry and Kevin
Axt alternating on bass.
The L.A.-based Tierney Sutton Band's most recent recording is 2007's 'On the Other
Side,' a collection of songs connected by a theme of happiness ('I Want to Be Happy,'
'Get Happy,' 'Happy Talk,' 'Happy Days Are Here Again,' etc.), but arranged across
the full spectrum of emotions. This occasionally makes for some probing
interpretations as slow, sad rhythms undercut lyrics about good times.
The breakthrough disc has been getting very good response as selections from it are
performed live in concert. In October, the tour heads down the 405 to Costa Mesa
and four shows at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. In researching an
article for The Center's Revue magazine, I sat with Tierney at the Jerry's Deli in
Encino (which, for disclosure purposes, was a Dupar's the last time I was there).
Over coffee, the 15-minute Intermission concept ran over until this Dialogue became
the length of an entire 90-minute play.
CRIS GROSS Let’s start with the band's two bass players. Both are shown in the cover photo of
the live 'I'm With the Band' album, but you don’t say who plays on what track.
TIERNEY SUTTON It’s just a mixture. We basically alternate. Sometimes they both played one thing.
But we played four live sets over the course of two afternoons at Birdland and in the course of
those four sets there are some things that only one of them played ever. In the end they just wanted
to be selfless and express that it doesn’t really matter. But people sometimes [mistakenly] think both
of them are playing on songs.
On the new record both are playing on a lot of things. So we figured it would be better to just explain
who’s doing what.
Usually when we tour we only have one bassist. I’m not sure whether we’ll have both of them in
Costa Mesa. I don’t know. It just depends. Anything is possible. We try to be in the moment.
CRIS GROSS It’s tough to describe how in the moment your music is.
TIERNEY SUTTON It’s like describing a painting.
CRIS GROSS But there are groups that have that in the moment sound, no matter how many times
you listen to their records. Start with The Beatles, and part of the reason they sound so different is
that there is a sense of entitlement each of those guys had. That within the structure they can all . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON Be themselves.
CRIS GROSS Yes. Be themselves. And that’s rare that band members have the kind of equality of
ego and then the spontaneity and musical intelligence to take advantage of that chemistry.
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s it.
CRIS GROSS So it feels spontaneous.
TIERNEY SUTTON I think you hit the nail on the head. You know they’re my legal partners. It is The
Tierney Sutton Band. They make as much or as little money as I make in whatever we do. We are in
it, up to our necks, together. And there’s really no separation for any of us. We also have full
autonomy in terms of creating what part we play and editing each other in terms of what the others
do. We have this consultative process that we go through when we arrange things, where we
musically consult and then we verbally consult. So we’ll play through the thing and then we’ll have
lunch the next day and one of us will say ‘You know that felt a little funny on the bridge’; ‘What do
you think about how that interacts with that?’ And 99 percent of the time, two other people will say ‘I
felt exactly the same thing. Let’s address that. Let’s try something to smooth that out.’ So there’s a
really unbelievable quality in this band where we all have a very strong sense of what we sound like
as a group, but we also have a sense of what our roles are in it.
We’ve all changed how we play and I how I sing by being in this musical relationship. And we’re
happy to be influenced by each other. So it’s this kind of combination where you’re in the moment
because you know – at least in my case – I know I’m going to get great ideas from them. So why
would I not pluck those up with everything I’m worth? So I want them to bring what they are to the
table. It would be foolish not to say, What do you think about this? How does this sound to you? And
in going through that process really interesting things happen in the arrangement. And then we know
when we’ve got it. And we also know we’re done: ‘Okay, that one’s done.’
But even when they’re done, they evolve. They keep changing because somebody does something
in the moment.
On the new record the structures themselves are set up to be much freer. So, those really can be
dramatically different in the moment: where things happen, the amount of bars, the dynamics, how
long my phrases are. Everyone has a lot more choice because we’ve been listening to each other
now for 14 years and there’s so much trust that everyone knows that we’re going to catch each
other.
CRIS GROSS And you’re not necessarily the one who’s going to call the change on the stand.
TIERNEY SUTTON Noooo. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
CRIS GROSS So anybody can be the one to indicate they have an idea and want to try something . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON Absolutely. And there’s actually some strange little things built into the
arrangements where there’s a call and response thing and sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s the
bass player, sometimes it’s Christian on piano. Sometimes it’s the drummer.
CRIS GROSS Essentially you have stretches where anybody can signal for a lane change and
everybody’s watching for blinkers . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s right. And it’s certainly not me who does the signaling. In fact a lot of
times I prefer when it's not. I like to react. And to me that’s what jazz is supposed to be. It’s
supposed to be communication and reacting to the moment to something that happens that’s not
under your control and then hopefully having the ability to land on your feet. That’s where the fun
stuff comes.
CRIS GROSS You have a unique ability there, compared with other vocalists where the musicians
know they only have an eight-bar solo coming up. These guys are always active. The whole thing
is...
TIERNEY SUTTON The whole thing is. The whole thing is. And every piece of it reflects that. When
we do a sound check: the amount of time we spend listening to how everything is mic’d. The
balance of the trio in the room. I go out and in the room and listen to the balance of the trio. And then
Christian and I do a piano duet and the bass player and drummer go out in the hall and say, okay –
usually – they say the piano is not loud enough. Because what [the stage’s techs] do is make me so
loud that a lot of the musical things that we do are not able to be done to their greatest effect. Most
bands are not as sensitive and as dynamically complicated as my band. I mean we’ll create a set
based on the fact that the piano is not that good.
CRIS GROSS And that happens?
TIERNEY SUTTON Absolutely. And that’ll be our main concern. We’ll sit down and say, Okay,
Christian. You’re up against it tonight. Or if the bass amp is weird or if the room is really booming.
And we talk to the bass player and say what do you need?
CRIS GROSS What did you think of the Monterey Jazz Festival last year?
TIERNEY SUTTON It was wonderful. It was great. Our show was at 11:30 at night or something. It
was a really late show, but it was wonderful. There’s nothing like the Monterey Jazz Festival. It’s a
really special thing to do. That was our first time there.
CRIS GROSS One of the things about vocalese, I was surprised to find out that there are different
lyrics to all three songs that you do that also Karrin Allyson does – 'Con Alma,' 'Joy Spring' and
'Footprints.' Who did the lyrics that you sing in 'Joy Spring?'
TIERNEY SUTTON I actually am not sure. I was asking LaRue, Clifford’s widow, who lives here in
town, about that lyric and she said Clifford hated it.
CRIS GROSS Oh!
TIERNEY SUTTON I felt bad. But I’d already recorded it. I don’t know who wrote it. It’s funny. I’m
not a huge fan of lyrics to bebop tunes period. I think it’s sort of like gilding the lily. I think it’s really
hard for the listener to explore to that much.
CRIS GROSS I wouldn’t have said it, but that’s how I feel.
TIERNEY SUTTON And so I don’t do that much of it anymore. If I’m going to sing . . . I mean I’m
thinking of doing ‘Blue Rondo ala Turk,’ . . . . It ain’t gonna have no lyric if I sing it! Just to do those
things clean and to make them. . . . . I mean, there’s one recording that makes me a liar about this and
that’s the brilliant recording of ‘Freddie Freeloader’with Bobby McFerran, Al Jarreau, George Benson
and Jon Hendricks. And on that recording what they do, because they’re so amazing, is that first
and foremost, it gives the spirit of the solo they’re singing and after that they manage to fit that lyric in
in an honorable, groovy way. But almost no one can do it. So I do very little of it. I don’t enjoy it that
much. On the other hand, I actually love to do text-based improvisation. I would rather sing the
second or third chorus of something with the lyric and play with it and render it crazy, with the lyric.
There’s something about that in my brain that works better than just scatting.
CRIS GROSS Yeah.
TIERNEY SUTTON Just for me. Just the way my head works. And, it’s improvisation. There’s very
little of the original melody left by the time I’m done with it.
CRIS GROSS Well, you’re arrangements, particularly on the new record, are by no means locked in
to the melody.
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s true. A little bit here and there. But those things, you do at your own peril.
And it's very easy for them to sound cheesy I think. Very easy for them to sound . . .
CRIS GROSS Too ornamental.
TIERNEY SUTTON Too ornamental and sort of self-conscious. Not sound organic. And the only
recording that I know that really make them sound absolutely organic are like that ‘Freddie Freeloader’
recording of those guys, where they can do it and they can make it sound like they rolled out of bed
and that’s what they heard. Kurt Elling can do it to a certain extent, too. He does a great job on it.
But most people who do it, sound like doing an exercise . . .
CRIS GROSS More head than heart.
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah. And I want my audience to think but foremost I want them to hear
something that is beautiful and that sounds good.
CRIS GROSS Like it was meant to be.
TIERNEY SUTTON That it was meant to be. Not, ‘Oh listen to how clever that is.’ And we will talk
about that when we are doing the arrangements. One of us might say, you know this just sounds
too clever. We sound too heady here. We gotta bring it into the heart. Now, when working with
musicians of the caliber that I get to work with, they’re heart opens up the most when their head is
also engaged. It’s a full-on thing. Christian plays his most brilliant solos when he’s doing something
that is technically unbelievably hard. That is the way he works. In fact, I’ve been known to just go to
a show and say, well here’s the song I want to do, could you please transpose it . . . ah, a tritone
away. I give him some really hard transposition so that his brain has to work so hard to transpose it
that the most brilliant craft comes out.
CRIS GROSS It’s amazing for people who don’t know what you’ve got there and go, as I did the first
time, and I thought. . . . what’s going on here? I felt the same way when I saw John Pizzarelli and
there’s this unknown headliner over at the keyboard.
TIERNEY SUTTON You mean Ray Kennedy?
CRIS GROSS Yes, that’s who it was. I think there would be people who come to the show to see
Christian and say, who’s the singer?
TIERNEY SUTTON No question. People stake out tables right in front of the piano. Piano players
come to see him very frequently. You know we go up to San Francisco and Denny Zeitlin comes
down to see us. I mean, he likes my singing and all, but I know there’s a big part of them that want to
see one of the greatest living jazz pianists. Wants to see what this guy’s up to. And that’s true to
every guy in the band.
Very high level stuff. The fact that I’ve been so fortunate is never lost on me.
CRIS GROSS It’s weird to have it last for 12 or 14 years . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON It doesn’t happen. I don’t know anyone else, with the exception of Kurt Elling and
Lawrence Hopgood. The other members of the band have rotated, but he does have that long
relationship with Lawrence and the two of them have worked together for so long. But other than
that it’s really hard.
CRIS GROSS Christian’s Maynard Ferguson Presents album preceded your first album by a couple
years.
TIERNEY SUTTON Yes it did.
CRIS GROSS And you’ve been working together since before then.
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah. We went in to record it in ’95. And I had met the guys . . . I had heard
Christian and actually tried to hire him when we were all playing in Boston, but it didn’t work out. He
didn’t have a green card and I had a gig that required a Social Security number. I moved to L.A. in the
early '90s and quickly saw how many great jazz players there were. I met Ray and Trey when they,
with Christian, were the rhythm section in Jack Sheldon’s Big Band. I used to go to the union and
listen to Jack’s Big Band and just take notes on the songs Jack played and I love his singing and I love
his playing and that’s kind of how it started. And those guys were playing with him.
CRIS GROSS I think West Coast musicians get second-class status.
TIERNEY SUTTON Well it’s just ignorance. I mean, come on, Pete Christlieb? For crying out loud.
These guys are . . . I was listening to Peggy Lee’s ‘Mink Jazz’ the other day, and Jack plays on it,
and I’m sorry you tell me who plays better than that. Pony up and tell me who is playing on any
record that sounds like that.
We have the virtuosity in this town without the ego. And what that does is, you get on the
bandstand, and the singers who come here, and use pick-up bands in L.A., they know. Because
what happens is, you bring your sheets to your pick up band and it’s like the tenth guy you’ll call from
the L.A. studio scene will read down your chart like nobody’s business and make it sound better than
it’s ever sounded because the skill needed to make it in this town. They need to be in the moment on
the country record that you played on yesterday, then the jingle for toothpaste that’s like some kind of
hip-hop thing you played the next day, and then to work for this writer who doesn’t really know what
he’s doing but you make their stuff sound so good that they feel good about themselves . . . .
CRIS GROSS They get an award.
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s right, that they win an award, and that is what these guys do, day after
day after day. If there’s any training better for a jazz musician, I don’t know what it is.
CRIS GROSS When I heard Karrin at Catalina’s in advance of interviewing her, I didn’t know her
band so I thought I’d get a feel for them. The bassist and pianist looked similar so I thought she might
have brothers which would explain part of why the music was so tight: years of playing together
that preceded even being with her. Come to find out, her bassist had missed the plane and this was
a guy she’d never met who was called in at the last minute.
TIERNEY SUTTON And you would never know.
CRIS GROSS You would never know.
TIERNEY SUTTON That’s right. Her luck was that it happened to her in L.A. And because it
happened to her in LA. she had nothing to worry about. There are 25 guys in this town who could
have walked in and done that. And, the standard of how good you have to make it sound on that first
take, and how you’re supposed to serve the situation you’re in, it’s not about you being a star, so
what is the situation you’re in and how do you make it sound as good and musical as possible? And
that’s a philosophy that I think anyone who’s the star of anything starts to lose. And it’s a kind of
philosophy, but it’s a great philosophy and I think it’s that that made the guys in my band sound the
way they sound. They were so used to making it work.
CRIS GROSS Well, you've been well enough known to be on the cover of 'JazzIz.'
TIERNEY SUTTON I got JazzBeat, which is the radio international program I was on the cover of
‘JazzIz.’ And I’ve made the Downbeat Critics’ Poll, which I think is a huge accomplishment because I’
m on the West Coast. The only West Coast artists that get in that poll are John Clayton and me and
that'skind of it, which is kind of crazy. But it’s getting to do the thing that you love. I don’t know that
these guys would trade places with a l lot of the artists who maybe get that recognition.
CRIS GROSS Regarding the material, the Great American Songbook, is that a volume that is
expanding anymore?
TIERNEY SUTTON I’ll tell you, I think about that a lot. And my initial response is that it’s not expanding
very fast; it’s not expanding very much. Because of the difference in how music is made. And it’s
not a matter of ‘Oh the good old days when songs were good,’ it’s just different now. Because so
much of what goes on now is the art of production.
CRIS GROSS When you say 'now' do you mean the 21st Century or are you going back?
TIERNEY SUTTON From about 1970 on. For instance if you listen to a Stevie Wonder record, and I
used to listen to a lot of Stevie Wonder records, the songs are really perfectly honorable. They’re
good songs. But what makes them unbelievably great recordings are the arrangements, the horn
parts, the vocals . . . There are so many elements.
CRIS GROSS But when you take it down to the skeleton . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah, when you take it down to the skeleton it’s a good song but what makes the
soul of ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’ is the horn part. It’s just great. It’s great art. But it’s a
different kind of art.
Somebody asked Keith Jarrett years ago why he doesn’t record Joni Mitchell songs. Now, Joni
Mitchell is a genius, I love Joni Mitchell and there may come a time when I can figure something
honorable to do with something she does but it’s really hard. The art there is the song itself, but so
purely the song itself that it’s very hard to do anything to it. The requirements of a standard are two
things, that it have a structure that has potential to be messed with and that it has a structure that
isn't so closed that messing with it destroys it. That’s a very specific set of criteria in order for
something to be a standard. So a lot of times I’ll listen to a song and I’ll really like it, but I’ll think, ‘What
can we do with this?’ It’s too closed, it’s too finished. The I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed and
anything I would do with this would take away from what Joni Mitchell did.
Sometimes the structure is just too complicated. You know, there are too many parts of it. And how
would you do this without making it this great opus. Whereas if you take a little theme, like ‘You Are
My Sunshine,’ that everybody knows, you can ride that wave and sort of make this improvisational
thing about it, while the basic through line is something you’re really familiar with. That’s the other
element of a standard. If the audience is familiar with the song, you can really take it in a weird way.
It’s just a tricky business.
Now being at a point in my career where you know Johnny Mandel is a friend of mine, and the
Bergmans are friends of mine, I know some of these people who wrote these iconic songs and they
got more of ‘em, that nobody ever heard, and these are the masters, so you find this little gem by
Henry Mancini, like ‘Two for the Road,’ that’s not recorded very often. Or, I just found one by Johnny
Mandel called ‘Unless It’s You.’ Just this beautiful little touching gem of a song. These guys knew
something and the way that they wrote is so beautiful in terms of the art form that we do.
CRIS GROSS Well, if your band can’t convert the songs of the singer-songwriter era to standards,
nobody can.
TIERNEY SUTTON It could happen. It could happen. There are a few. I think about this a lot. I really
do.
CRIS GROSS Let’s talk about the new recording, ‘On the Other Side,’ which I think is at a whole
other level. I mean that in a number of ways: the synthesis of everybody, the arrangement risks,
there’s a little less ornamentation . . .
TIERNEY SUTTON More freedom.
CRIS GROSS A little more funkiness. So I think it’s a real classic. Not that anything was missing
from what you’ve done before. This just seems to open up on a new dimension.
TIERNEY SUTTON Well thank you and I really appreciate that. Because I think what happened when
we made this record for us was that we were all very frightened. We knew we were taking some
risks. We had performed this stuff live in a tentative order and it kind of fell flat, is the only way to
describe it.
CRIS GROSS Fell flat with the audience?
TIERNEY SUTTON Well, we felt like it did, but actually . . .
CRIS GROSS They just weren’t responding the same?
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah, I think people were kind of taken aback. So the thing was we got all this
feedback from our manager, who said, ‘I don’t care if you’re uncomfortable. This is important and
this is what you have to do.’
CRIS GROSS Oh, good. So she was behind it.
TIERNEY SUTTON Oh absolutely. And then we sent a recording of that gig back to our producer at
Telarc and she emailed back I don’t know if we’re going to sell any records but this is important and
you have to do it. And so that’s where it’s been really fortunate for us to have those kinds of
relations instead of the same old crap that artists get. So we were very fortunate in that regard.
But some of the feedback we got from supporters and our inner circle was, 'That really freaks me
out, hearing you guys do that.' But they meant it in a good way. And you have to do that. But it was
very scary. I knew that vocally it was going to be a very challenging record. I think that every time
we’ve made a record, with the exception of the live record. I have left the studio thinking, okay I think
we did it, but how am I going to do this live. I gotta grow into this material. And it’s okay, now I feel
confident about doing it on the road and it’s been going very well on the road and it’s not a problem.
But every time there’s this growth process. But that’s what keeps everybody in the band.
CRIS GROSS Well, now that you have the record out there people have heard it in anticipation. . .
TIERNEY SUTTON Yeah. We’re stuck. Gotta do it.
CRIS GROSS But I mean, they’re primed for it now.
TIERNEY SUTTON Well, often they haven’t listened to it, so we’re just. . . . There you go! People are
buying it like mad at the shows. So they gravitate towards the new stuff. And I think it took awhile
before I kind of realized that we were really moving into a new place as a band -- redefining some
things. We didn’t mean to. We just wanted to keep ourselves interested. We were playing with the
forms in a way that, because of this 14-year relationship, a lot of bands can not. So we’ve invented
some new techniques in arranging, based on being able to do call and response with each other.
Just because of the way that we play together. So it’s been kind of exciting. But it’s been like
everything else for us. It’s been very organic. And by listening to everyone, and the fits and starts
and the worrying that maybe this is going to be horrible.
CRIS GROSS Well, given that it’s your seventh album and the one in which you seem to have taken
the biggest step, it's clear you're not just settling in and giving the fans more of what they’ve bought
before.
TIERNEY SUTTON That isn’t going to happen in this band. There’s no way that we would do that.
And I think that’s the gift of having this kind of band relationship. And, the gift of having that kind of
relationship with the mentality of L.A. musicians.
Somebody asked me at one point, ‘What’s your goal, in terms of your career or whatever?’ And I
realized that what it really is and it seemed very much what I thought was the goal of every jazz
musician that I knew and that was to make a record that in 50 years somebody would look back to
and say, ‘Oh this is a great record, have you heard this? This is really cool.’ Period. Not to sell a
million of them tomorrow. Not to be on Jay Leno. None of that is my goal. My goal, as I thought was
the goal of every jazz musician, is what do we do. We listen to ‘Kind of Blue.’ We listen to ‘Mink
Jazz.’ We listen to these records and we go, ‘Hey man, check this out. Isn’t this gorgeous?’ And
we're listening to these records 50 or 60 years after they were made.
CRIS GROSS So by making something timeless you’ve defied the whole mishegas.
TIERNEY SUTTON Defied the whole mishegas, the long-term sales you hope will be good, but you
don’t attach yourself to that because you know how crazy it is. You’re doing jazz for crying out
loud. This isn’t Britney Spears. I have no expectations of that kind of thing. So in jazz, that’s the
goal. So, to be in this process with other musicians who obviously have this same goal, that’s all
they're interested in: making sure that the next record does not repeat the last record.
We’re not going to do something the exact way that Nat Cole did in 1943. What purpose is there for
us to do that? It can’t be improved upon. We’re here to do whatever it is that we can that moves the
story forward. And that’s it. It’s not about reinventing what somebody else did because we think it’s
going to sell a lot of records.
The whole thing is a mystical enterprise. I mean our goal, when we sit down on a stage, is to have a
mystical experience. And we want the audience to have that too. But, first and foremost we want
to create a kind of a place where we're out of ourselves and if we’re really lucky, and I think one of
the reasons the band stays together is that in over half of our shows, we go there. And I know that’
s true in terms of doing it, but I don’t always get that it’s true for the listener. I don’t always get that. I
get nice fan letters, but
CRIS GROSS They’ve got to be there, too. The audience has to meet you halfway. But playing
music, as I say to people when they ask if I’m a good trumpet player, is, I can play good enough to
hear my soul. And that’s all I need. Because to me, the instrument summons up the wind, but the
chimes it blows through is the individual’s soul. That’s what gives music its individuality and its
spirituality.
TIERNEY SUTTON It’s essentially a spiritual enterprise. It’s not physical. It has a deeply physical
effect on us, and a psychological effect, but the deeper effect is something else. And to get in touch
with that makes you not want to make music any other way. The principle around which this band
runs has made it able to function in that way for all this time
CRIS GROSS Collectively.
TIERNEY SUTTON Right. And that unity that we feel when we’re doing it, that loss of self, that loss
of your personal self, which is what makes us free.
| THEATER TIMES DIALOGUE / TIERNEY SUTTON |
"A serious jazz artist who
takes the whole enterprise to
another level"
-The New York Times
In a world of overnight
sensations, jazz vocalist
Tierney Sutton's success has
come from the road less
traveled. A decision in the
mid 1990's to move to
Southern California from her
New England home resulted
in a decade-long
collaboration with her current
band mates. A
Wisconsin-born choir girl,
unexposed to jazz until
college, Tierney eventually
found the best of the best
collaborators with their own
impressive jazz pedigrees,
from Natalie Cole to Diana
Krall, from Ray Charles to
Randy Brecker, pianist
Christian Jacob, bassists Trey
Henry and Kevin Axt, and
drummer Ray Brinker. Ten
years and six critically
acclaimed CDs later, Tierney
and her band demonstrate
what collective consultation
and dedicated teamwork can
achieve. Reviewers repeatedly
say that audiences experience
a rare and powerful harmony,
achieved by humble
performers at the top of their
game. The road less traveled
in an impatient world.
A versatile studio singer as
well as premiere entertainer,
Tierney's voice was recently
featured on Lions Gate's hit
film The Cooler, starring
William H. Macy and Alec
Baldwin. She can also be
heard in Paramount's
Twisted, starring Samuel L.
Jackson, Andy Garcia and
Ashley Judd. And in 2004,
Tierney and her band scored
the independent feature film
Blue in Green, which was
released by the Unica Project.
Tierney's unique voice is also
regularly featured in
commercials representing
such organizations as BMW,
Coca Cola, Dodge and J.C.
Penney.
Educated at the Berklee
College of Music in Boston,
Tierney became a
semi-finalist in the
Thelonious Monk Jazz Vocal
Competition in 1998. Her
first solo CD, Introducing
Tierney Sutton (1999), was
released to rave reviews and
nominated for a 1999 Indie
Award for Best Jazz Vocal
Album.
Later that year, Tierney
signed with the Telarc Jazz
label. On Unsung Heroes,
released in March 2000, she
took popular jazz standards
that are usually performed
instrumentally (Joe
Henderson's "Recordame,"
Clifford Brown's "Joy
Spring," Wayne Shorter's
"Speak No Evil," Dizzy
Gillespie's "Con Alma" and
others) and recorded them
with vocals. Soon she became
one of the critics' most talked
about jazz musicians.
Tierney's second Telarc
project, Blue in Green,
released in June 2001, was an
album of music written by or
associated with pianist Bill
Evans. Featuring fourteen
incredible performances from
Tierney and her working trio,
Blue in Green even included
a guest appearance by former
Evans drummer Joe La
Barbera.
Something Cool, released in
September 2002, quickly rose
to #1 on the jazz charts and
continues to garner extensive
airplay across the U.S. and
Europe. This adventurous
recording includes a swinging
rendition of "Route 66,"
Lerner and Loewe's "Wouldn't
It Be Loverly," "I've Grown
Accustomed To His Face"
and "Show Me," Willie
Nelson's "Crazy," and a fresh
arrangement of "Ding Dong!
The Witch Is Dead," one of
Tierney's concert favorites.
In March 2004, with the
release of Dancing in the
Dark, which debuted in the
Billboard Jazz top ten and
remained on the charts for
over 15 weeks, Sutton
completed one of the most
critically acclaimed and
commercially successful runs
in the history of New York's
legendary Oak Room. The
packed houses at the Oak
Room and the rave reviews
she received eventually led to
her February 2005 Carnegie
Hall debut with the New York
Pops.
In March 2005, Tierney and
her band performed in front
of a select audience of friends
and fans at Birdland in New
York City. Produced by
Elaine Martone, I'm with the
Band is Tierney's first live
recording and her fifth Telarc
release.
The set list on I'm with the
Band is a Tierney Sutton fan's
dream-come-true, featuring
never before recorded
material from throughout her
career. And live, Tierney
simply cannot be beat,
because as great as she is in
the studio, it's on stage where
she really lights up.
The last two years have been
good to Tierney and the band.
I'm with the Band was
nominated for a 2005
Grammy in the "Best Jazz
Vocal Album" category.
Also in 2005, Tierney won
JazzWeek's Vocalist of the
Year Award, and in 2006 she
was honored by the Los
Angeles Jazz Society with the
Jazz Vocalist Award.
An active educator, she has
served in the Jazz Studies
Department at the University
of Southern California, as
well as giving workshops and
clinics throughout the world.
takes the whole enterprise to
another level"
-The New York Times
In a world of overnight
sensations, jazz vocalist
Tierney Sutton's success has
come from the road less
traveled. A decision in the
mid 1990's to move to
Southern California from her
New England home resulted
in a decade-long
collaboration with her current
band mates. A
Wisconsin-born choir girl,
unexposed to jazz until
college, Tierney eventually
found the best of the best
collaborators with their own
impressive jazz pedigrees,
from Natalie Cole to Diana
Krall, from Ray Charles to
Randy Brecker, pianist
Christian Jacob, bassists Trey
Henry and Kevin Axt, and
drummer Ray Brinker. Ten
years and six critically
acclaimed CDs later, Tierney
and her band demonstrate
what collective consultation
and dedicated teamwork can
achieve. Reviewers repeatedly
say that audiences experience
a rare and powerful harmony,
achieved by humble
performers at the top of their
game. The road less traveled
in an impatient world.
A versatile studio singer as
well as premiere entertainer,
Tierney's voice was recently
featured on Lions Gate's hit
film The Cooler, starring
William H. Macy and Alec
Baldwin. She can also be
heard in Paramount's
Twisted, starring Samuel L.
Jackson, Andy Garcia and
Ashley Judd. And in 2004,
Tierney and her band scored
the independent feature film
Blue in Green, which was
released by the Unica Project.
Tierney's unique voice is also
regularly featured in
commercials representing
such organizations as BMW,
Coca Cola, Dodge and J.C.
Penney.
Educated at the Berklee
College of Music in Boston,
Tierney became a
semi-finalist in the
Thelonious Monk Jazz Vocal
Competition in 1998. Her
first solo CD, Introducing
Tierney Sutton (1999), was
released to rave reviews and
nominated for a 1999 Indie
Award for Best Jazz Vocal
Album.
Later that year, Tierney
signed with the Telarc Jazz
label. On Unsung Heroes,
released in March 2000, she
took popular jazz standards
that are usually performed
instrumentally (Joe
Henderson's "Recordame,"
Clifford Brown's "Joy
Spring," Wayne Shorter's
"Speak No Evil," Dizzy
Gillespie's "Con Alma" and
others) and recorded them
with vocals. Soon she became
one of the critics' most talked
about jazz musicians.
Tierney's second Telarc
project, Blue in Green,
released in June 2001, was an
album of music written by or
associated with pianist Bill
Evans. Featuring fourteen
incredible performances from
Tierney and her working trio,
Blue in Green even included
a guest appearance by former
Evans drummer Joe La
Barbera.
Something Cool, released in
September 2002, quickly rose
to #1 on the jazz charts and
continues to garner extensive
airplay across the U.S. and
Europe. This adventurous
recording includes a swinging
rendition of "Route 66,"
Lerner and Loewe's "Wouldn't
It Be Loverly," "I've Grown
Accustomed To His Face"
and "Show Me," Willie
Nelson's "Crazy," and a fresh
arrangement of "Ding Dong!
The Witch Is Dead," one of
Tierney's concert favorites.
In March 2004, with the
release of Dancing in the
Dark, which debuted in the
Billboard Jazz top ten and
remained on the charts for
over 15 weeks, Sutton
completed one of the most
critically acclaimed and
commercially successful runs
in the history of New York's
legendary Oak Room. The
packed houses at the Oak
Room and the rave reviews
she received eventually led to
her February 2005 Carnegie
Hall debut with the New York
Pops.
In March 2005, Tierney and
her band performed in front
of a select audience of friends
and fans at Birdland in New
York City. Produced by
Elaine Martone, I'm with the
Band is Tierney's first live
recording and her fifth Telarc
release.
The set list on I'm with the
Band is a Tierney Sutton fan's
dream-come-true, featuring
never before recorded
material from throughout her
career. And live, Tierney
simply cannot be beat,
because as great as she is in
the studio, it's on stage where
she really lights up.
The last two years have been
good to Tierney and the band.
I'm with the Band was
nominated for a 2005
Grammy in the "Best Jazz
Vocal Album" category.
Also in 2005, Tierney won
JazzWeek's Vocalist of the
Year Award, and in 2006 she
was honored by the Los
Angeles Jazz Society with the
Jazz Vocalist Award.
An active educator, she has
served in the Jazz Studies
Department at the University
of Southern California, as
well as giving workshops and
clinics throughout the world.
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