Sutton Emphasizes Musicality in Her Singing

The same enigma faces every singer who elects to venture into jazz: how to balance words and music. For some, the solution is to use the voice as an instrument, de-emphasizing the importance of the lyrics. For others, telling the story is everything. And, of course, there are thousands of variations in between.

Singer Tierney Sutton, who performed Tuesday night at Rocco’s in Bel-Air, has a lovely voice that she uses with remarkable flexibility and musical accuracy. She also is well trained, with a good ear and an intelligent understanding of the technical elements of music.

Perhaps predictably, this level of sophistication tends to lead her toward an emphasis upon the music, rather than the words, in her singing. Much of what she offered, in fact, had the feeling of preset arrangements rather than spontaneous efforts to get inside the meaning of her material.

There were some exceptions. On “Spring Is Here,” for example, Sutton phrased beautifully, emphasizing the story, faltering only when she sacrificed the subtle irony of the final line--”Spring is here, I hear” to a repetitious vamp ending. “Detour Ahead” also emerged with a real understanding of the lyrics’ metaphoric imagery. In neither case did she sacrifice any of the jazz qualities of her performance by also telling the story.

Other tunes--a high-speed rendering of “Autumn Leaves,” a too sprightly version of “Early Autumn,” a group of songs associated with Bill Evans and a structured “East of the Sun”--were musically articulate but heavily weighted toward instrumental style.

Sutton was superbly supported by the piano playing of Christian Jacob and the bass contributions of Trey Henry. But drummer Ray Brinker, who was subtle and incisive with his brush work, failed to realize--when he picked up his drumsticks--that intense doesn’t necessarily mean loud, often playing at a volume that nearly overwhelmed the climactic sections of Jacob’s solos.