After
nine CDs over 20 years with her longstanding Tierney Sutton Band, the five-time
Grammy-nominated Jazz vocalist decided to leave her comfort zone and leap off
the cliff by tackling an homage to the revered pop singer-songwriter Joni
Mitchell. With After Blue, her most daring and revealing project to date,
Sutton puts her own unique stamp on familiar Mitchell tunes going back to
1969’s “Both Sides Now” and 1970’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and including more recent
numbers like 1979’s “The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines” and 1982’s jivey “Be
Cool,” along with Joni’s haunting take on the standard “Don’t Go to Strangers”
from her 2000 orchestral album, Both Sides Now. “That album with orchestral
arrangements by Vince Mendoza was my doorway into ‘Joni-land,’ Sutton writes in
the liner notes to After Blue. “It is the vocal album that I have listened to
more than any other in the years since its release. I consider it to be on par
with Sinatra’s Wee Small Hours and Billie Holiday’s Lady in Satin.”
Having
come up as a Jazz singer with an intimate knowledge of the Great American
Songbook, Sutton wasn’t all that familiar with Mitchell’s work prior to hearing
Both Sides Now in 2000. But that tour de force recording sparked her interest
and sent her on a journey of investigating Mitchell’s earlier masterworks like
Blue, Ladies of the Canyon and Court and Spark. But it would be years before
she started performing any of that material in concerts. “I knew that
Mitchell’s music was not something I could glance at and then perform,” she writes
in the liner notes. “I had to live with it---for years—like her fans who had
absorbed the music in their youth. I wanted to ‘marinate’ in Joni Mitchell.”
Eventually, Sutton incorporated “Big Yellow Taxi” into her sets with her
working band (pianist Christian Jacob, bassists Trey Henry and Kevin Axt,
drummer Ray Brinker) and by 2011, she was performing “All I Want” and “Little
Green” on tour with the Turtle Island Quartet.
When the
time seemed right to do her own Joni Mitchell tribute recording, Sutton’s regular
pianist Jacob was immersed in his own solo project and her longtime drummer
Brinker had just gotten married and was preparing for life as a first-time
father. So she recruited pianist-organist Larry Goldings, whose longstanding
tenure with James Taylor gave him a greater understanding of pop forms and the
decidedly non-jazzy accompaniment required of a pop gig. Next she recruited
friend and former Weather Report drummer Peter Erskine, who had actually played
on “The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines” from Mitchell’s 1979 Mingus album. Cellist
and Turtle Island Quartet founder Mark Summer came on board for a frisky duet
with Sutton on “All I Want” and a stark, stirring duet rendition of “Both Sides
Now,” while the full TIQ backed Tierney on intricate arrangements of “Blue” and
the delicate “Little Green.” Parisian guitar master Serge Merlaud turned in a
beautiful straight ahead reading of the melancholy jazz standard “Don’t Go To
Strangers,” which also features Tierney Sutton Band bassist Kevin Axt chording,
a la Freddie Green, on acoustic bass guitar. Merlaud also played nylon string
acoustic guitar in an intimate, classically influenced duet with Sutton on
“Answer Me, My Love,” which Mitchell performed on 2000’s Both Sides Now.
Elsewhere
on After Blue, Goldings supplies the Hammond B-3 bass lines and bluesy-churchy
organ work on “The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines” and “Be Cool,” then switches
gears for wonderfully evocative piano-voice duet readings of “Court and Spark”
and “Woodstock,” along with a moving medley of “April in Paris” that morphs
back and forth into Joni’s “A Free Man in Paris.” “What I love about Larry is
that he is all about the sound and the beauty of the simple line,” says Sutton.
“And I’m sure that comes from all of his years with James Taylor. All the
albums I’ve done up until now have been about these really amazing, crazy
arrangements with all this stuff going on with reharmonization and all the rest
of it. But I really wanted to be simple on this project. Of course, I’m a Jazz
singer so there has to be some sensibility with a couple of tensions in there.
And Larry is the perfect balance of those things. He’s really special and I
feel lucky to have him on this session.”
Ralph
Humphrey, the longtime in-demand West Coast studio drummer and one-time member
of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, adds a deft touch with brushes on
an inventive 5/4 drums-voice duet rendition of “Big Yellow Taxi.” Flute legend
Hubert Laws appears on “The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines”” and “Be Cool,” the latter
also featuring the great Al Jarreau in a soulful and scintillating vocal duet
with Tierney. Says Sutton on how she came to recruit fellow Milwaukeean Jarreau
for this tribute project: “I was listening to Travelogue, the other Vince
Mendoza record with Joni Mitchell, and all of a sudden ‘Be Cool’ comes on. And
I remember I was walking around my house, doing stuff while listening to this
record, and I did like a double take in my kitchen and said to myself, ‘This
sounds like an Al Jarreau tune, it doesn’t sound like a Joni Mitchell tune.’
And I decided that was it. That was the tune for him to sing on this album. I
suggested it to his manager and they ran it by him and the next thing I knew,
we were in the studio together. It was really propitious…a very fun, lucky
thing.”
Sutton’s
last musical tribute was her 2001 Bill Evans homage, Blue in Green. With After
Blue, she pays tribute to an artist whom she holds in equal esteem. “Joni’s
phrasing is so signature and influential, and as a lyricist and as a poet she
stands alone. She has deep Jazz credentials and there is a legitimate respect
that Jazz musicians and jazz lyricists have for her.
This
album means many things to me,” Sutton writes in the liner notes to After Blue.
“It comes after my 30 years of concentrating on the ‘Blue In Green’ tones of
Miles and Bill Evans and Coltrane and Sinatra. And after spending time with the
many hues of Joni’s own repertoire, I hope this record represents a coming
together of those hues, those colors of music. Thank you Joni Mitchell for your
inspiration, your excellence. All I can hope for here is to scratch the surface
of your deep legacy…to paint a little multi-colored portrait inspired by you.”
Sutton’s
hues are vivid, inviting and highly personal throughout her Joni-inspired
portrait on After Blue.
