ARTISTS: Bill Charlap Trio with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Nicholas Payton
DATE: September 1, 2024
VENUE: John Coltrane Jazz and Blues Festival; High Point, NC
PERSONNEL: Dee Dee Bridgewater (v); Nicholas Payton (tp); Bill Charlap (p); Peter Washington (b); Kenny Washington (d).
The Bill Charlap Trio (with guests Dee Dee Bridgewater and Nicholas Payton) represented a true oasis for straight-ahead jazz lovers at the pop and funk-heavy John Coltrane Jazz and Blues Festival. Their program of established standards by Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, and Jimmy Van Heusen provided a welcome respite from the flashy and forgettable repertoire of the outdoor festival’s other groups. A torrential rainstorm delayed the Charlap ensemble’s appearance by about an hour, and the wet weather scared away a sizable portion of the audience. Those who stayed were rewarded with an extraordinary concert.
Pairing Bill Charlap with Dee Dee Bridgewater was an inspired move. Both infuse their music with outrageous humor: the pianist punctuating long right-hand runs with abstract slams in the bass register, and the vocalist spicing her lyric delivery with sassy tonal inflections and wild scat improvisations. On a version of “Cottontail”, Bridgewater engaged in a spritely duet with Charlap, following every step as the pianist scampered across the keys. To improve her vantage point, she rose from her chair and stood behind Charlap to watch his fingers. Nicholas Payton was a forbidding presence in a black hat and floor-length robe, but the crying sound of his muted trumpet reached directly to the listener’s hearts. Peter and Kenny Washington may not be related to one another, but the musical chemistry they developed from their two decades in the Charlap Trio makes them an unmatched rhythm team. As I recall, Peter had only one solo opportunity in the concert, but he capitalized on it with his rich tone and imaginative ideas. Kenny had a little more solo space, and he used it to show his great taste and reserve. Charlap’s active comping and unpredictable solos were a highlight throughout the set, and following in the steps of Mary Lou Williams and Jaki Byard, Charlap represented the entire history of jazz during the set. At the end of the set, the audience called for an encore. Charlap whispered a suggestion to Bridgewater, and on mic, she said “Oh, do you really think we should?”. The pianist replied with a head nod, and the vocalist reluctantly began to sing “Here’s That Rainy Day”. Her worst fears were realized soon after, as the rain began to fall again. I had planned to stay for the rest of the evening (featuring the bands of Lao Tizer and Gregory Porter) but my clothes were still soaked from the earlier storm, so I made my way across the muddy lawn and took the shuttle back to my hotel.
ARTISTS: Lao Tizer Band
DATE: September 11, 2024
VENUE: Urban Arts Exchange; Wilmington, DE
PERSONNEL: Karen Briggs (vln); Lao Tizer (p,org,syth); Cheikh N’Doye (b); Joel Rosenblatt (d); Elliott Yamin (v).
As luck would have it, I had another chance to catch Lao Tizer when he and his quintet appeared in Wilmington just 10 days after the Coltrane Festival. On albums such as his CD, “Amplify“, Tizer’s group sounds very slick and “produced”, but the slimmed-down live version of his group works within the jazz tradition. The beats and compositions may be derived from pop, funk, and Latin sources, but the music incorporates the same interaction and improvisation of jazz performances. Violinist Karen Briggs is an incredible soloist who created her unique approach by combining the sounds of jazz violin and rock guitar. She can move from a glassy ponticello sound to wild thrashing riffs in a heartbeat, yet she makes everything sound unified. Tizer works with a trio of keyboards (Rhodes piano, synthesizer, and keyboard with an organ patch, the latter connected to a large Leslie speaker). Most of his solos moved from one keyboard to another, but he focused on the organ for a spectacular solo on his original tune “Why”. (Wilmington has a strong connection to organ jazz: In 1956, Jimmy Smith recorded a live 2-LP set for Blue Note at the Baby Grand, which was located just a few blocks from the Urban Arts Exchange bandshell). Vocalist (and “American Idol” finalist) Elliott Yamin performed four songs with the band with a delivery strongly reminiscent of Stevie Wonder. Cheikh N’Doye was a solid anchor to the band throughout the set, and his solo near the end revealed a fine conception and tone. Joel Rosenblatt—the only member who was not on the featured album—showed great versatility and musicianship in following and enhancing Tizer’s complex arrangements. After the concert, Tizer told me that his group closed the Coltrane Festival, playing to a loyal and attentive crowd of about 250. He had roughly the same number of listeners in Wilmington, and the crowd was certainly as appreciative. In retrospect, it is too bad that the programming of the Coltrane Festival was switched at the last minute, for Lao Tizer’s live group would have been the perfect bridge between the swinging jazz of Bill Charlap and the R&B-fused soul of Gregory Porter. But there’s nothing you can do about the rain…
ARTISTS: John Pizzarelli Trio
DATE: September 27, 2024
VENUE: Baby Grand Theatre; Wilmington, DE
PERSONNEL: John Pizzarelli (g,v); Isiah J. Thompson (p); Mike Karn (b).
In addition to his abundant musical talents, John Pizzarelli has considerable prowess as a raconteur (The same could be said about Pizzarelli’s friend and occasional collaborator, Ken Peplowski). During his performance in Wilmington, Pizzarelli provided a hilarious running commentary on his program of Broadway and movie songs, featuring several groan-worthy puns, and charming memories of his youth. When he mentioned the rock LPs he adored as a teenager, he accented his comments by playing guitar riffs from “Frampton Comes Alive” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. However, as the son of the legendary jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, young John soon discovered the standards that his father loved. Father and son teamed up and John was soon a major jazz guitarist in his own right. The Wilmington concert was in support of his CD “Stage and Screen” and the trio was unchanged from the recording sessions, with pianist Isaiah J. Thompson and bassist Mike Karn supporting Pizzarelli’s guitar and vocals. The band book is primarily arrangement-driven, and the tight charts also appear on the recording, naturally with different solos. The trio works very well within these frameworks, with an active three-way musical conversation on the opening piece, “Too Close for Comfort”, the chorus-long unaccompanied solos for each musician on a ripping version of “I Want to Be Happy”, and the wild genre shift from beguine to funk(!) on “Where or When”. Pizzarelli switched from electric to acoustic for a three-song solo set, featuring a gorgeous “Some Other Time” sans vocal plus two complex instrumentals by Pat Metheny. Later in the concert, he played acoustic with the trio on a sensitive performance of Tom Jobim‘s “Waters of March”. Pizzarelli has used the guitar/piano/bass instrumentation for a little over 30 years, when he recorded a splendid tribute album to Nat King Cole. But while Cole used the same instrumentation in his early career, Pizzarelli revealed—through stage announcements and the style of his current musicians—that his inspiration was the original Oscar Peterson Trio. Thompson is an obvious Peterson disciple with his blazingly fast fingers and astute harmonic sense. Like his idol, his ideas are not always as profound as his technique. Karn takes the Ray Brown role seriously, holding rock-solid tempi while enriching the group with exceptional note choices and a deep tone that can be felt as well as heard. And there is Pizzarelli himself, charming and enlightening the audience with his finely crafted vocals, and then dazzling us with brilliant fast passages on his guitar. Hopefully, the warm audience reception will lead to a return engagement in Wilmington sometime soon.
ARTISTS: Liz Callaway & Ann Hampton Callaway
DATE: October 15, 2024
VENUE: Rittenhouse Grill; Philadelphia
PERSONNEL: Liz Callaway, Ann Hampton Callaway (v); Alex Rybeck (p).
Rittenhouse Grill is an elegant restaurant located in Philadelphia’s Center City. Upon entering the venue, the first vision is a long oak bar running along the left side of the room, with small tables set at the opposite wall. The dining room is beyond—and below—the bar, in a sunken area about three steps down. What passes for a stage is the upper landing of the single staircase between the bar and the dining room. The grand piano—used at least for the present engagement—was placed upstage with a clear sightline between the pianist and the main performers. The singing sisters, Liz Callaway and Ann Hampton Callaway, made the best use of the limited performance space during a two-night appearance which also marked their first duet concerts in Philly. Each sister had plenty of solo pieces, and when they sang together, they were able to share the space comfortably. This was especially true in a solo spot for Ann roughly halfway through their show of Broadway favorites. On a Stephen Sondheim solo medley, Ann began with a heartfelt turn on “Not a Day Goes By” and then segued into the gut-wrenching “Being Alive.” In the second chorus, Liz came up behind her sister and placed a hand on her shoulder. The solo was suddenly a duet, with Liz providing the support pleaded for in Sondheim’s lyrics.
Readers of this website are undoubtedly familiar with Ann Hampton Callaway, whom I have reviewed in both concerts and recordings. Liz Calloway made her reputation as a Broadway star, with an early break coming as part of the original cast of Sondheim’s show “Merrily We Roll Along”. (She recently recorded a splendid CD tribute to Sondheim called “To Steve, with Love“. It is not to be missed!) Her voice can be bright and enthusiastic, as in her powerful rendition of “The Music and the Mirror” (from “A Chorus Line”) or hushed and sensitive in “The Story Goes On” (from one of Liz’s later hit shows, “Baby”). While Ann also has Broadway experience, she has moved from cabaret to jazz, and her powerhouse version of Harold Arlen‘s “Blues in the Night” showcased a variety of dynamics and vocal timbres. However, her outstanding rendition of “If He Walked into My Life” proved that she was indeed born to play Auntie Mame. Together, the sisters celebrated the memory of their mother, the esteemed vocal coach Shirley Callaway, with a stirring arrangement of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. They also joined their voices in fine arrangements of “Corner of the Sky”(from “Pippin”), “For Good” (“Wicked”), and “You’ve Got a Friend” (“Beautiful”, a Carole King jukebox musical). While the concert was not a jazz show per se, it pulled songs from the same vast American songbook, and the Callaway sisters touched the audience’s hearts with emotionally compelling performances.
ARTISTS: Ryan Keberle & Catharsis
DATE: November 21, 2024
VENUE: Jazz Gallery, New York City
PERSONNEL: Ryan Keberle (tb,p,v); Michael Rodriguez (tp); Scott Robinson (ts); Camila Meza (g,v); Ike Sturm (b); Eric Doob (d).
It was a cold rainy night when my friend and I set out to hear Ryan Keberle‘s Catharsis at the Jazz Gallery in lower Manhattan. After encountering several traffic backups on our way from Wilmington, we arrived just in time for the second set. With the cooperation of the club management and Keberle, I was able to access a video recording of the first set, so I could review Catharsis’ complete performance. It was the final performance of the group’s bi-coastal tour, which celebrated both the reunion of Catharsis’ core personnel after a 5-year COVID-enforced layoff, and a new album, “Music is Connection“. The recording features Catharsis’ core quartet of trombonist/keyboardist/vocalist Keberle, guitarist/vocalist Camila Meza, bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Eric Doob. At the Jazz Gallery, the group was expanded to include trumpeter Michael Rodriguez and tenor saxophonist Scott Robinson. Roeder was not in attendance at the Gallery, and his spot was well-covered by the brilliant Ike Sturm. The sheer size of the group made the live experience considerably different from the studio recording. The quartet setting of the CD yielded an extended improvised dialogue between Keberle and Meza. For the tour, the solos were redistributed among the four solo voices, and there was less simultaneous improvisation. When the three horns and Meza’s guitar did improvise together, it was difficult to keep track of the individual lines. While the result was far from cacophony, it seemed at odds with the music’s peaceful, holistic style.
Since joining Catharsis just over a decade ago, Meza has become one of the group’s primary voices. In the first set, she performed an emotional song called “Lo Unico Que Tengo” composed by a fellow Chilean, Victor Jara. Even without an English translation, Meza’s powerful vocal could draw tears from the most jaded listeners. Elsewhere in the first set, her only lyrics came on the closer, “Become the Water”. In the second set, she had many more opportunities both as vocalist and guitarist. She dazzled the audience with her serpentine lines and intricate harmonic acuity on Keberle’s “Carbon Neutral”. Later, on Milton Nascimento‘s classic ballad “Vera Cruz”, she wrapped her voice around the Portuguese lyrics and then topped off the performance with a magnificent guitar solo. Many of Keberle’s originals are wordless, and he and Meza sang the melodies with scat syllables. Keberle should write (or commission) lyrics for these songs, both to allow the music to properly speak for itself, and to add necessary variety between the compositions. A prime candidate for lyrics would be “Arbor Vitae”, Keberle’s homage to Música Popular Brasileira. In that song, Robinson’s tenor solo evoked the spirit of Stan Getz. Robinson overdubbed a solo for the CD, which sounded much like Getz’s solos from his bossa nova records, but at the Gallery, he was more adventurous—yet still in character—with a solo strongly reminiscent of Getz’s daring interactions with drummer Roy Haynes.
Over the two sets, every member of Catharsis played marvelous solos and contributed to the ensemble. Keberle adroitly balanced himself between his trombone, a Fender Rhodes keyboard, and a vocal microphone. On the CD, he was able to overdub the various parts, but he covered everything in the live performance. He created a series of powerful trombone improvisations, including a stunning motive-driven statement on “Key Adjustment”. Rodriguez followed with a lyric invention that was the perfect response to Keberle’s intense solo. Meza brought an effects box to the gig, and she created other-worldly backgrounds which subtly enhanced the two disparate versions of Doob’s original “Cycle”. Doob’s propulsive drums boosted the overall energy throughout, and he played thrilling solos—in-time, rather than free–on two versions of “Throwback Moves”. Finally, Sturm filled Roeder’s spot with aplomb, most notably when playing Roeder’s fiendishly difficult bass line on his composition “Hammersparks”.
ARTISTS: Maria Schneider Orchestra
DATE: November 23, 2024
VENUE: Town Hall; New York City
PERSONNEL: Tony Kadleck, Greg Gisbert, Nadje Noordhuis, Jonathan Powell (tp); Keith O’Quinn, Ryan Keberle, Nathan Mayland, George Flynn (tb); Steve Wilson, Dave Pietro, Rich Perry, Donny McCaslin, Scott Robinson (r); Julien Labro (acc); Gary Versace (p); Jeff Miles (g); Jay Anderson (b); Clarence Penn (d); Maria Schneider (comp/cond).
Maria Schneider celebrated the 30th anniversary of her orchestra with “Decades“, a new 3-LP set of remastered tracks, and a gala concert at New York’s Town Hall. Ironically, the concert only included three of the compositions from the records. At $175 per set, the LPs were too expensive to send to critics, so a digital stream was e-mailed in its place. A PDF of Schneider’s extensive liner notes was also included, which re-introduced these pieces from her unique perspective. From that perspective, I can state that the remastered tracks on “Decades” sound phenomenal, and it is a shame that the collection was not issued on CD (which would have allowed Schneider to reissue twice as much music). Taken together, the concert program and the LP collection offer a substantial overview of Schneider’s remarkable development as a composer and bandleader. For example, the concert’s opening two selections, 1992’s “Evanescence” and 2017’s “Don’t Be Evil” presented a dramatic contrast in style and approach. The former, Schneider’s perceptive tribute to her mentor Gil Evans, was considered quite progressive when it was new, but the current performance seemed nostalgic and comfortable. Rich Perry brought a new perspective to his classic recorded solo, while Greg Gisbert made the Miles Davis segment his own. The sardonic “Don’t Be Evil” was much more extroverted with the ensemble figures sounding like a mix of 1930’s Kurt Weill and the Liberation Music Orchestra. Solos by Jay Anderson, Jeff Miles, and Gary Versace framed an emotive trombone spot for Ryan Keberle. In speaking of the many fine musicians that have graced her orchestra, Schneider mentioned the late trumpeter Laurie Frink, the subject of Schneider’s tender portrait, “A Potter’s Song”. Accordionist Julien Labro enhanced the memorial with his touching improvisation.
The trumpet section had a new member in Jonathan Powell, featured on Schneider’s still-unrecorded work, “American Crow”. Schneider wrote this piece as an illustration of how communication and listening have deteriorated in our fractured society, and her music makes a gradual shift from harmony to cacophony with the trumpet solo playing throughout the transition. Powell handled the challenge with courage and strength; he may become an important new voice in this band. One of the group’s longest-standing members, Scott Robinson, was featured next. He brought out his baritone saxophone to play “Sputnik.” The searing, long high-pitched lines were not the sounds expected from that instrument, but Robinson’s mastery of the altissimo range made the high notes sound heavenly. The expansive “Cerulean Skies” featured superb ensemble work from the band, as well as outstanding solos by Donny McCaslin (tenor), Dave Pietro (alto), and Gary Versace. The concert—among the finest I have ever heard by Schneider and her Orchestra—concluded with Steve Wilson featured on the beautiful “Sky Blue”. We are fortunate to have Maria Schneider in the jazz world. Her influence continues to grow with young composers, and she continues to create remarkable music, notable for its range and emotions. I hope that she continues to create new music for many more years.
ARTISTS: Melissa Stylianou, Gene Bertoncini, Roni Ben-Hur
DATE: November 24, 2024
VENUE: North Square; New York City
PERSONNEL: Melissa Stylianou (v); Gene Bertoncini, Roni Ben-Hur (g) with guest vocalists Cemre Necefbas, Ben Cassara, and Brenda Earle Stokes.
At 87 years old, guitarist Gene Bertoncini is in the twilight of his career. For the past few years, he has lived in an assisted living facility and he has kept up his chops by performing concerts for his fellow residents, often in the company of guitarist Roni Ben-Hur. A few years ago, he recorded a fine album with vocalist Melissa Stylianou and bassist Ike Sturm, “Dream Dancing“, and several of the songs from that disc were included in Bertoncini’s recent matinee gig at North Square with Stylianou and Ben-Hur in support. Age has certainly affected Bertoncini’s playing: his technique is less polished, and his sense of musical discovery is such that unexpected key jumps and fragmented solos emerge without warning. Stylianou and Ben-Hur came well-prepared and were able to smooth over the edges in the elder statesman’s performance. As for Bertonicini, his face would light up like a child as a new (or possibly remembered) idea fell under his fingers.
The repertoire consisted of well-known standards, with a slight emphasis on the bossa nova songs Bertoncini recorded early in his career. Stylianou sang Tom Jobim‘s “Corcovado” in both Portuguese and English, but stuck with the latter for most of the remaining bossas, including “Triste” and “No More Blues”. She demonstrated her considerable talent as a scat singer, performing one- or two-chorus inventions with fine ideas and surprising developments. Ben-Hur was both a sensitive accompanist and a stunning improviser. He engaged Bertoncini in duets on “The Shadow of Your Smile” and “If I Had You”. In addition to his other duties, Ben-Hur supplied bass lines to substitute for an ill bassist. The audience included several of NYC’s best jazz vocalists, and three of them agreed to sit in with the two guitarists. Cemre Necefbas sang a sprightly version of “Exactly Like You” during the first set, while the second set included back-to-back tunes by Ben Cassara (“On a Clear Day”) and Brenda Earle Stokes (“You’re a Weaver of Dreams”). Bertoncini told the audience that he was “spoiled”; that may be true to a certain extent but he can be proud of the music he made at North Square on this November afternoon.
L-R: Renee Rosnes (p); Peter Washington (b); Steve Nelson (vbs); Lewis Nash (d). Photo by Eric Smith.
ARTISTS: Renee Rosnes Quartet
DATE: November 24, 2024
VENUE: Smoke Jazz; New York City
PERSONNEL: Steve Nelson (vbs); Renee Rosnes (p); Peter Washington (b); Lewis Nash (d).
One of the benefits of living on the East Coast is hearing favorite performers in different settings. For example, in the last few years, I have heard pianist Renee Rosnes leading her quartet, as the musical director of the supergroup Artemis, and in Ron Carter‘s Foursight Quartet. During the final two sets of her quartet’s residency at Smoke, Rosnes referenced concepts from live concerts by her other two ensembles. Rosnes has a great love of originals from vintage Blue Note albums. She has created arrangements (or more appropriately, re-compositions) of “Maiden Voyage” and “Footprints” for Artemis, and while she did not play those pieces with the quartet, several of the pieces that the group performed were straight from the Blue Note archives, including compositions by Duke Pearson, Bobby Hutcherson, and Thelonious Monk. When I heard Rosnes with Carter, both sets included settings of the bassist’s favorite ballad, “My Funny Valentine“, but the version in the first set had an extended coda based on John Coltrane‘s “A Love Supreme“, whereas the second set’s version omitted the Coltrane reference. At Smoke, the same thing happened on two set-closing versions of “Tin Tin Deo“. Lewis Nash told me that the sudden push into double-time in the early set was completely spontaneous and sure enough, the tempo change did not reappear in the second set.
The first set opened with a true rarity from John Lewis, “Rouge”. Composed for Miles Davis‘ “Birth of the Cool” sessions, the piece is rarely performed by small combos. That did not deter Rosnes or her bandmates Steve Nelson, Peter Washington, and Lewis Nash. The master drummer shifted styles between a two-beat and swing, while the other three invented superb variations over the rich harmonic sequence. Thelonious Monk’s “Green Chimneys” came next, with the usually intense Nelson throwing in a quote from (of all tunes) “Tico Tico”. Rosnes’ deeply lyrical mood on Duke Pearson’s “You Know I Care” was sustained for Bobby Hutchinson’s delicate “Now”. The latter featured a melody with gently rising and falling contours that inspired introspective solos from Nelson and Rosnes. Harry Warren’s “Summer Night” and Dizzy Gillespie‘s “Tin Tin Deo” closed the set, with complex lines from Nelson and cascading ideas by Rosnes on the former. The second set held more surprises, including Nelson’s switch to 4 mallets on “Let’s Cool One” and Rosnes’ ingenious reworking of Chick Corea‘s “Tones for Joan’s Bones”. Finally, Rosnes called two originals, “Evermore”, a quiet ballad based on a Bach chaconne, and the powerful “Galapagos”, which drew expressive solos from the entire quartet.
ARTISTS: Ken Peplowski Quartet
DATE: November 30, 2024
VENUE: Birdland; New York City
PERSONNEL: Ken Peplowski (ts,cl); Glenn Zaleski (p); Martin Wind (b); Willie Jones III (d).
With his cancer now in complete remission, a lean but fiery Ken Peplowski played an exciting set with his trio during his Thanksgiving week residency at Birdland. True to form, the group performed without rehearsals, and no songs were repeated during the run. Peplowski drew from his deep archives to program sets with several rare titles, and veteran bassist Martin Wind told me before the set that at least two of the upcoming tunes were new to him. As expected, the quartet played all of this music with great swing, spirit, and precision, perhaps inspiring the audience to question why they had not heard some of these songs before. While the music carried plenty of surprises, the only non-musical oddity was that Peplowski made relatively few comments and jokes between numbers.
Peplowski credited the opening tune as “Sonny Side” by Sonny Stitt, but it bore a remarkable similarity to Charlie Parker‘s “Dexterity”. Bird made the first recording in 1947, but Stitt’s version from two years later adds a few unique melodic twists. Peplowski’s version was a speedy bebop showcase for his smoking hot tenor, Glenn Zaleski‘s fleet keyboard, Martin Wind’s agile bass, and Willie Jones III‘s swinging drums. Next, the group performed two rare pieces from the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn songbook. “The Feeling of Jazz” was part of Ellington’s collaboration with John Coltrane, and also appeared on Duke’s “Jazz Violin Session“. Zaleski offered an angular approach to the changes, and Peplowski responded with a beefy tenor solo before Wind picked up his bow for an exquisite lyric interlude. I suspect that the second piece “Le Sucre Velour” was a Strayhorn composition. The band effortlessly soared through the song’s shifting tonal centers and challenging harmonies. A brisk version of Tom Jobim‘s “O Morro Não Tem Vez” (“Somewhere on the Hills” in English) preceded a romantic version of Cole Porter‘s “I Love You Samantha” from the movie “High Society”. On Bud Powell‘s breakneck anthem “Wail”, Peplowski showed the viability of bebop clarinet, and then changed the mood completely with Vince Guaraldi‘s “Christmas Time is Here”. A medium blues by Aaron Bell called “Passing Thoughts” was the official closing piece, but Peplowski satisfied the audience’s need for an encore with a brief and speedy excursion on “Cherokee”. We are fortunate that Ken Peplowski’s good health has returned. His brilliant musicianship and deep humor are good medicine for us all.
ARTISTS: Tierney Sutton Quartet
DATE: November 30, 2024
VENUE: Smoke Jazz; New York
PERSONNEL: Tierney Sutton (v); Christian Jacob (p); Ricky Rodriguez (b); Lenny White (d).
Ken Peplowski had barely left Birdland’s stage when my friend and I left to grab an uptown subway to Smoke for Tierney Sutton‘s final set. We arrived on time, but Sutton’s previous set had run long, so we had a few minutes to settle in before she returned to the stage. While the musicians of her backing group had vastly different backgrounds, they worked as a cohesive unit as they worked through Sutton’s precise and demanding arrangements. Sutton, who usually performs seated on a high bar stool, stood through this late-night set (When I asked her why, Sutton said “I had to!” but didn’t explain the reason). She bookended the set with two Cole Porter standards, opening with a slow and sexy “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” and closing with a medley of Irving Berlin‘s “White Christmas” and Porter’s “Too DarnHot”. Lenny White cushioned Sutton with a pad of brushes on the former, and relaxed swing on the latter. In between, there was a pristine collection of songs by Dave Frishberg (“Sweet Kentucky Ham” in a gorgeous duet with pianist Christian Jacob), Duke Ellington (“Caravan” in a vintage arrangement from Sutton’s LA band), and Jimmy Buffett (“Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On”—appropriate advice for current times). Sting was represented with three pieces: a mashup of “Fragile” with Luiz Bonfá‘s “Gentle Rain”, “Walking in Your Footsteps” in a fun 7/4 setting for voice, bass, and drums, and a lovely version of “If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free”, again featuring Jacob’s rhapsodic piano. “Walking” was a set highlight with great interplay between the nimble-fingered Ricky Rodriguez and the steady pace from White’s tenor and bass drums. Sutton was in exceptional voice, moving from tender, heart-rending ballads to blistering scat choruses. The Buffett song may be the beginning of a new song cycle for the Sutton band, and judging from the worldly message of “Breathe In”, a Buffett/Sutton collection could be an artistic and commercial success. Sutton’s set was over much too soon, but I’m confident that she will return for another engagement at Smoke.
ARTISTS: Stacey Kent
DATE: December 19, 2024
VENUE: Birdland, New York
PERSONNEL: Stacey Kent (v, perc); Jim Tomlinson (ts, cl, fl); Art Hirarhara (p); Tom Hubbard (b); Anthony Pinciotti (d).
Over the past two decades, I have attended several nightclub performances by Stacey Kent. However, I have never seen her as animated as she was during her December 2024 performances at Birdland. When I asked Kent’s husband and musical partner Jim Tomlinson about this surprising shift in stage manner, he exclaimed “It must be the jet lag”. Sure enough, as Kent related in a chatty dialogue with the audience, her band had just completed the final leg of an arduous tour with a long globe-crossing plane ride. During the set, the normally-reserved vocalist bounced around the stage to the music, and occasionally added auxiliary percussion parts. It was great to see Kent enjoying the final concerts of the tour, but despite her light-hearted mood, she never lost focus on her interpretation of lyrics. On Tom Jobim’s “Bonita,” she brought her finely-honed intensity to the fragile lyrics, and although she has performed this standard many times, she made it sound like the message was something she was just experiencing for the first time. In a tender duet with the remarkable accompanist Art Hirahara, Kent brought deeper meanings to the lyrics of the well-worn “Shadow of Your Smile”, and with Tomlinson taking Stan Getz‘s part, she renewed fond memories of Jimmy Rowles on a sumptuous “I’ll Never Be the Same” (the opening track from the Rowles/Getz album, “The Peacocks“). Percussionist Anthony Pinciotti made the latter arrangement unique by adding a slight backbeat and lightly dancing cymbals to the accompaniment. [Unfortunately, this was one of Pinciotti’s final performances: he suffered a cardiac arrest on Christmas Eve and died as his wife was transporting him to the hospital.] As usual, the highlight of Kent’s set were the songs written for her by Tomlinson and the Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, including the sarcastic “Tango in Macao”, the delightful “Waiter, Oh Waiter”, and the travel-weary saga, “Bullet Train”. Kent introduced a fresh—and long overdue—piece of merchandise: an illustrated book, “The Summer We Crossed Europe in the Rain“, with full lyrics for 16 of the Ishiguro songs, enhanced with an informative preface from the author and illustrations by Bianca Bagnarelli. The best part of the book appears at the end, where a QR code links the reader to a 90-minute digital audio stream featuring Kent’s recordings of 11 of the songs (with alternate versions of five of the songs performed with different accompaniments). Hopefully, Kent will record the remainder of these songs (and perhaps some new ones?) on her future recordings.