TIERNEY SUTTON - After Blue (2013) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Tierney Sutton claims she had never really encountered Joni Mitchell until she heard the songwriter's 2000 album Both Sides Now, a collection mainly comprised of standards. (An album she holds in the same regard as Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours and Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin.) In 2011 she performed four of Mitchell's songs during a performance with the Turtle Island String Quartet; that gig set this project in motion. After Blue is Sutton's first offering that doesn’t include her regular band -- its members were involved with other projects at the time. Instead, her collaborators are a collection of jazz luminaries who include Peter Erskine, Larry Goldings, Ralph Humphrey, Hubert Laws, the TISQ, and Al Jarreau, who duets on "Be Cool" (the only track to feature one of Sutton's own musicians, bassist Kevin Axt). Sutton reads Mitchell by moving through the songwriter's various creative periods, embracing the singer/songwriter's jazz leanings in her phrasing, improvisation, and syncopation, and their shared love of the Great American Songbook. This last notion is evidenced by Sutton's version of "Don’t Go to Strangers" and "Answer Me My Love," both of which Mitchell poignantly delivered on Both Sides Now. She also seamlessly melds closer "Freeman in Paris" with "April in Paris." Other standouts include "Blue" and "Little Green" with TISQ, the fingerpopping "The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines" with Laws, Erskine, and Goldings, and the swinging, thoroughly re-envisioned "Big Yellow Taxi." On "Both Sides Now," she is accompanied only by Mark Summer's cello. For those accustomed to hearing Sutton re-interpreting standards from the golden era, After Blue retains her trademark gifts of phrasing, restraint, and emotional honesty. But as an album, it is just as remarkable as Herbie Hancock's The Joni Letters in its creative rapprochement of Mitchell's music with the jazz tradition, and reveals Sutton at a vocal and interpretive peak. by Thom Jurek
Tracklist :
1     Blue 4:11
Joni Mitchell
2     All I Want 3:28
Joni Mitchell
3     Court and Spark 4:57
Joni Mitchell
4     Don't Go to Strangers 5:56
Redd Evans / Arthur Kent / Dave Mann
5     The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines 5:15
Charles Mingus / Joni Mitchell
6     Big Yellow Taxi 3:06
Joni Mitchell
7     Woodstock 6:08
Joni Mitchell
8     Little Green 4:53
Joni Mitchell
9     Be Cool 5:50
Joni Mitchell
10     Answer Me My Love 3:45
Fred Rauch / Carl Sigman / Gerhard Winkler
11     Both Sides Now 5:11
Joni Mitchell
12     April in Paris/Free Man in Paris 5:36
Vernon Duke / E.Y. "Yip" Harburg / Joni Mitchell
Credits :
Acoustic Bass – Kevin Axt (faixas: 4)
Arranged By – David Balakrishnan (faixas: 1), Julie Bernstein (faixas: 8), Kevin Axt (faixas: 9), Mark Summer (faixas: 2, 11), Serge Merlaud (faixas: 10), Tierney Sutton (faixas: 9, 12)
Cello – Mark Summer (faixas: 1, 8)
Drums – Peter Erskine (faixas: 5, 9), Ralph Humphrey (faixas: 6)
Flute – Hubert Laws (faixas: 5, 9)
Guest – Al Jarreau (faixas: 9)
Guitar – Serge Merlaud (faixas: 4, 10)
Organ [Hammond] – Larry Goldings (faixas: 3, 5, 7, 9, 12)
Piano – Larry Goldings (faixas: 3, 5, 7, 9, 12)
Viola – Benjamin von Gutzeit (faixas: 1, 8)
Violin – David Balakrishnan (faixas: 1, 8), Mateusz Smoczyński (faixas: 1, 8)
Vocals – Tierney Sutton