“Souter's crystalline contralto and impeccable phrasing are mighty arrows in her quiver, but it is her ability to become one with a song, finding its intrinsic core and allowing its sentiments to grow organically, that enables her to score successive bull's eyes.” –Jazz Times
A multi-talented artist from a multi-cultural background, vocalist Tessa Souter brings her personal diversity to the stage and recording studio. A former freelance journalist and scholarship recipient to the Manhattan School of Music, Souter is currently touring in support of her acclaimed third recording, Obsession. The tour brings her to the Artists Quarter in St. Paul on Wednesday, May 12th. Guitarist Jason Ennis ensures this night will provide a double dose of sublime and globally informed jazz.
Tessa Souter
Born in London to English and Trinidadian parents, Souter overcame the challenges of teen motherhood, moving to San Francisco in the early 1990s to establish a career as a journalist covering travel, celebrities, the city’s homeless and more for major media outlets. She became one of the original members of the Bay Area literary haunt, the Writer’s Grotto. Yet she had long yearned to be singer, a path that opened up after singing in a San Francisco karaoke bar. Area jam sessions ultimately led to a scholarship at the Manhattan School of Music and move to New York in 1996 at age 40, but she soon left school for four years of mentoring by the legendary Mark Murphy. She described this period in a book, Anything I Can Do You Can Do Better, published by Random House (2006). Of her talents, Murphy noted, “She is a true musician ... extraordinary and very moving.”
Jason Ennis
New York –based guitarist Jason Ennis is steeped in both classical and Brazilian traditions. Trained at Berklee and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Ennis has performed with Charles Neville (The Neville Brothers Band), Todd Reynolds (Bang on a Can, Steve Reich), Freddie Bryant and more. He leads the Jason Ennis Trio, Nós Daqui and the Bernal/Eckroth/Ennis Trio, appearing in New York at such clubs as the Blue Note and Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Lincoln Center. Currently he is working on a recording of his own solo arrangements of jazz and Brazilian classics as well as a duo recording with Brazilian seven-string guitar virtuoso, Marcello Gonçalves. Jason teaches guitar privately and is a faculty member at Interplay Jazz in Woodstock, Vermont.
Obsession
Souter’s clear articulation, resonant contralto, and haunting phrasing are at the fore from the first notes of her arrangement of “Eleanor Rigby,” flowing into her unique creation of mood on “River Man,” both tracks particularly graced by Jason Ennis guitar. With Gary Wang’s bass lines, the title track suggests Brazilian R&B, while Wang and Conor Meehan provide a folkloric foundation for Tessa’s elegant rendering of “Afro Blue,” Ennis seamlessly sliding into an instrumental interlude of “Footprints,” while Souter’s closing “Afro Blue” verse sails above Shorter’s bass vamp.
Souter’s original compositions bring together Latin rhythms and American wordsmithing (“Now and Then”) in collaboration with Ennis’s sparkling guitar and Victor Prieto’s swinging accordion, while “Usha’s Wedding” looks eastward over a steady vocal chant, a modern prayer that echoes ancient rites.
At the Artists Quarter
Don’t miss this special presentation of one of the rapidly rising stars of vocal jazz, Tessa Souter, accompanied by one of the top first-call guitarists in New York, Jason Ennis. One night only, May 12th, at 8 pm (note early start time).
The Artists Quarter is located at 408 St. Peter Street, in the lower level of the Hamm Building in downtown St. Paul; www.artistsquarter.com. More on Tessa Souter at www.tessasouter.com
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