If you are going to call a show Songs of Loss, Justice, and Hope, all I can say is you had better deliver. And that’s just what Tierney Sutton and Shelly Berg did in their new show at Birdland Theater—delivered! Sutton sat on a stool center stage next to the piano which was turned so that the keyboard was facing the audience which enabled them to watch the interplay of musician and instrument as intimately as they could witness the special partnership between pianist and singer. What the duo delivered, first and foremost, was one of the great pairings in jazz—a pairing to rival Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, Irene Kral and Alan Broadbent, Janis Siegel and Fred Hersch, and Doris Day and André Previn. Tierney has been nominated nine times for a Grammy Award as Jazz Vocalist and is an acclaimed concert and club artist. Berg is a multi-Grammy nominated musician, arranger, and the Dean of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. Together they are musical magicians who transformed the downstairs stage at Birdland into a place of alchemy and wonder, of simplicity and feeling.
Shelly Berg and Tierney Sutton
Jason Robert Brown’s “Hope” provided a moving introduction to both the beauty of their sound and the depth and emotion of the project. The lyric, “I come to sing a song about hope…” was a winning welcome to the appreciative and attentive audience. Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer,” done in unexpected but riveting 5/4 time, gave the classic a steely resolve in addition to its usual cry of hope. Joking that in spite of the title, everything was just an excuse to sing a lot of songs about loss, the singer introduced “It Never Entered My Mind” (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) which Berg started with a sublime, beautifully played solo leading into a vocal so intimately personally phrased, that it almost felt like eavesdropping to listen to it.
“In Love in Vain” (Jerome Kern, Leo Robin) was a mid-tempo delight with Berg’s simple swing matching Sutton as she savored each word. One of the highlights of Antônio Carlos Jobim’s work with Elis Regina was the passionately dark and tragic “Modinha”; Sutton supplied new and evocative English lyrics, creating a piercing, fever dream of loss. To break the mood she so effectively established, she followed that with a “happy song about death” and how loss is healed by the continuing presence of love called “Springtime I’ll Be There.” Sutton again supplied moving lyrics to this melody by French musician Benoît Sourrise with whom she has just recorded an album in Paris. Cole Porter’s “All of You,” with its slow swing, was delivered with such pace and precision that it was thrilling.
Tierney Sutton
Recounting her friendship with Alan Bergman, Sutton included two songs he and Marilyn Bergman wrote with the great Dave Grusin. The first was a criminally neglected masterpiece entitled “The Trouble with Hello Is Goodbye” sung to heart-melting perfection, followed by a song I had never heard but one that should be making the rounds wherever fine singers congregate. It is called “Every Now and Then”—classic Bergmans, classic Grusin, and (now) classic Berg and Sutton. The pianist took over the mic for a moment at this point to discuss the lyrics of Cole Porter’s “I Love You” and revealed that he was as guided by the words and the story of a song as any great singer. It was a moment of unexpected grace and insight leading into a captivating arrangement of the song, both musically and lyrically, with some flute-like scat that gradually morphed into a strong and swinging bass sound.
The treasure of the evening for this reviewer was, of all things, a Jimmy Buffet song. Buffett is a favorite of the duo, and they opened my mind and my heart to his songwriting talent by including a piece he wrote following Hurricane Katrina called “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.” The simple, powerful poetry of the lyrics and the beauty of the melody, combined with the special connection both musicians displayed to the message and the music, will stay with me for a long time.
Pulling off what might have been, in lesser hands, a misguided closing medley with grace, humor, feeling, and fun, they played “Over the Rainbow” and “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead” that left me wondering if perhaps an additional word should have been added to the title, making it Songs of Loss, Justice, Hope, “and Joy,” for that is just what Tierney Sutton and Shelly Berg gave to the audience on that warm September night.
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Presented at Birdland Theater, 315 W. 44th St., NYC, September 19, 2024.
Gerry Geddes has conceived and directed a number of musical revues—including the Bistro- and MAC Award-winning "Monday in the Dark with George" and "Put On Your Saturday Suit-Words & Music by Jimmy Webb"—and directed many cabaret artists, including André De Shields, Helen Baldassare, Darius de Haas, and drag artist Julia Van Cartier. He directs "The David Drumgold Variety Show," currently in residence at Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, and has produced a number of recordings, including two Bistro-winning CDs. He’s taught vocal performance at The New School, NYU, and London’s Goldsmith’s College and continues to conduct private workshops and master classes. As a writer and critic, he has covered New York’s performing arts scene for over 40 years in both local and national publications; his lyrics have been sung by several cabaret and recording artists. Gerry is an artist in residence at Pangea, and a regular contributor to the podcast “Troubadours & Raconteurs.” He just completed a memoir of his life in NYC called “Didn’t I Ever Tell You This?”
