She Found Her Voice When She Found Jazz

Tierney Sutton, it seems, has always had a song in her heart.

“My mom says that I sang before I could speak, that I could finish melodies before I could speak sentences,” says Sutton, 32, a native of Omaha, Neb., who has lived in Southern California for the past two years.

But a gift for song does not necessarily a working singer make, and while Sutton did vocal jobs in high school, she had no intention of becoming a pro until she was 19 and heard jazz. That’s when she discovered that while audiences expect a rendition of a hit pop song to sound like the record, a jazz-based version of a standard offers plenty of interpretive latitude.

“Doing pop I didn’t feel a sense of integrity,” Sutton said. “I didn’t feel I knew what my own voice was. But when I had this summer job as a singing waitress in a resort in Wisconsin, I found that I could be myself when I sang a tune like ‘My Funny Valentine’ or ‘Georgia on My Mind.’ There wasn’t a version I had to copy.”

Sutton appears Wednesday at Monteleone’s West in Tarzana, working with pianist Dave Mackay. There, the soprano with the clear, ringing voice displays the appealing, jazz-rooted approach she’s honed over the past decade, a style that owes a debt to instrumentalists, perhaps more than singers.

“The best instrumentalists sound like a singer and vice versa,” she said, acknowledging a fondness for such vocal greats as Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Bobby McFerrin. “By studying a player like Miles Davis, you get the phrasing without copying the voice. So it’s a safer way to learn, and you discover more about your own sound.”

Sutton says she particularly liked trumpeter Davis and his mid-’50s saxophonist, John Coltrane. “I loved Miles’ sense of space and of timing, and his great care with his sound, as if every note is sacred, so make it as beautiful as possible,” she said. “And with Coltrane, there was this sense of spirituality, of reaching for something sublime.”

Working with Mackay is pure pleasure, said Sutton, who has appeared at such L.A.-area haunts as the Jazz Bakery, Lunaria and the Moonlight Tango Cafe.

“Dave is the incredible combination of delicate sensitivity and being really advanced harmonically,” she said. “He’s always ready to take things to the next level. He can swing hard, but he can also be very spare.”

At Monteleone’s, Sutton and Mackay will offer mostly obscure standards chosen on the spot. And even if they do something familiar, Sutton says, they’ll probably do it in a surprising way. “Like ‘Funny Valentine,’ ” she said. “I might do it as a swing tune, or Latin or in 5-4, or even as a funk tune. That way people who don’t know jazz can understand something about it. It’s important to draw people in.”

* Tierney Sutton appears with Dave Mackay on Wednesday, 7 to 11 p.m., at Monteleone’s West, 19337 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana. No cover; without dinner, $9.95 food/drink minimum. Information: (818) 996-0662.

Mitchell’s Dance Party: Pianist Billy Mitchell, known for his crowd-pleasing versions of jazz and pop tunes, felt that the over-50 crowd was missing something: a hard-swinging ensemble that could play dance music with verve and feeling. So he formed the Uptown Band to fill that niche.

“We play all kinds of traditional stuff, from ‘Don’t Get Around Much Any More’ and ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ to ‘Mood Indigo’ and ‘Pennsylvania 6-5000,’ ” said Mitchell, who brings the band into the Moonlight Tango Cafe on Wednesday.

The eight-piece outfit can stretch into other genres too, so much so that Mitchell occasionally calls it the “Urban Band.”

“If someone asks for a tune from the Motown era, we say ‘Yeah.’ If they ask for a jazz tune like ‘Giant Steps,’ we’ll do that. Want a samba? We’ll do one,” said the Pasadena-based pianist.

“We might even degenerate into funk, starting out the night with something like ‘Desafinado’ and ending up with ‘The Butt.’ ”

* Billy Mitchell’s Uptown Band plays Wednesday, 8 and 9:45 p.m., at the Moonlight Tango Cafe, 13730 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. $5 cover, $9.95 food or drink minimum. (818) 788-2000.