Wednesday, April 13, 2016 was a memorable evening at the Cherry Tree Restaurant in Jesmond. The food was a gourmet's delight, the house trio for the evening couldn't be bettered and the star of the show - Tessa Souter - captivated the audience. LINK.
The restaurant is no more, Peter Gilligan, leader of the trio is now somewhere east of Suez and Tessa Souter returned to the States.
Fortunately, Tessa is still riding high in NYC and with her latest album is aiming at dizzier heights - putting meaningful words to the challenging music of Erik Satie and projecting them with great depth of feeling.
She does all of that and more injecting those feelings into the music of a composer who died one hundred years ago. As well as the Satie compositions there are classics by Miles Davis/Ron Carter; Wayne Shorter/Cassandra Wilson; Jacques Brel/Rod McKuen and Léo Ferré.
Listening and absorbing the words and the music, the voice and the musicians - apart from Drummond (Tessa's husband) they were all new to me - I feel more than a little humbled. As such, rather than bumble my way through, I'll add a LINK to the press release which says everything I want to say except that they say it better!
Some may describe it as pretentious, but pretentious only applies if you're punching above your weight and get knocked out - Tessa's still standing.
Available from June 27 with an album launch in Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette St., NYC on July 1 - 100 years to the day of Satie's death. Lance
A Song for You(Gnossienne No. 1)*; Mood (Musica Universalis); Holding on to Beauty (Gnossienne No. 3); Peace (Gnossienne No. 2); Avec Le Temps; D’Ou Venons-Nous (Gymnopedie No. 3); Vexations (I Kiss Your Heart); Never Broken (ESP); Rayga’s Song (Gymnopedie No. 1); If You go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas)
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