Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Lucky us, Buffalo has two jazz series now, one at Kleinhan's and one at the Albright-Knox. On Sunday we were at the second of the Kleinhan's shows, a tribute to Harold Arlen featuring Tierney Sutton.
Although I am broadly familiar with Ms. Sutton's work she's never really grabbed me, and although Sunday's performance was fine it didn't make me a convert. My first thought was that she was at the jazz end of cabaret, but that's not quite right- she's a straight up jazz singer, and that may be my problem. If an instrumentalist- Sonny Rollins, let's say, wants to take a song like "My Shinning Hour" at a swing tempo that's one thing, but being sung like that does a disservice to the lyrics. Similarly, "If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight) sung as a ballad seems forced. You can hear the swing pushing back against the interpretation.
Also, can we please declare a moratorium on "Over the Rainbow"?
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