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Bevan Manson featuring Tierney Sutton with The Hollywood Studio Symphony: Talking to Trees

All About Jazz Review

By Nicholas F. Mondello
October 4, 2024

Bevan Manson is an artist who has a creative duality. As a pianist, composer/arranger and educator, he's been successful in classical and jazz environments. With Talking to Trees, Manson provides an array of both originals and jazz standards, most with an arboreal tint, as the title indicates. The work is a validation that his pen, guiding the talents of vocalist Tierney Sutton and L.A.'s premium players, can make the familiar fascinating and the novel intriguing.

Miles Davis' "All Blues" presents a soundscape—something consistent throughout the session—that is painted by melismatic voice, strings, and winds. It moves into the main melody in its triple-metered format with Sutton's voice and ensemble. The voice-over rhythm and strings is a fairy's scat and dance. A dark Ed Neumeister muted plunger solo adds a sardonic touch before closing. Tierney Sutton opens "Banyan Tree/Take the "A" Train" before spoken word and the woodwinds harmonically complex playing preface her up- tempo take on the standard which, with reharmonized and contrapuntal lines and Jeff Driskill's flute solo over Bernie Dresel's drive. Percussion clicks and clacks under a violin solo. "Willow Weep for Me" has Sutton stating the balladic lines over a woodwind choir and Manson's keys. Both he and Luca Alemanno add solos. "Redwood," is a light bossa nova feel with strings with added harp and trumpet before evolving into a lilting, light-textured groove in which Gordon Au trumpets a brief solo.

There have been many recordings that attempt to combine classical textures and/or instrumentation with jazz. Certain works of Duke Ellington, Gunther Schuller and David Amram, for example. Sometimes, in lesser-qualified hands, the novelty lacks substantive honesty as one genre mimes the other. It is a high-wire act, at best. At worst, it can become comedic and a toss-away. Here, Manson's use of strings, harp, and an abundance of various woodwind doublings, especially those in a more complex harmonic approach, keeps things in equilibrium. Sutton's voice, with all of its subtleties and dynamic inflection is a perfect fit for Manson's more embellished presentations. Her lyric interpretation blends well with what surrounds her harmonically.

Mixed winds preface Katherine Liner singing on "Sleepin' Bee" slowly and with a theatrical bent. Added woodwinds and Joe Locke's vibes give the effort an Impressionistic texture. "Mr. PC," from John Coltrane for Paul Chambers, has strings sawing away before things go into a Latin undertow. Rick Todd and Ira Nepus offer solos. This is a highlight track. Sutton's voice offers "SprigSpring" blooming into a vocal trio with Mandy Kahn and Bevan Manson joining. Images of windblown trees and their avian content swirl about. The late Mike Lang joins Manson's keyboards. Luca Alemanno spins a ride while Joe La Barbera's drum support. The selection moves from a slower tempo to a prestissimo. "SprigSpring" is a 13-minute concerto centerpiece with Prokofiev-like imagery. It is a provocative, imaginative track. Its subsequent epilogue, a slow painting, features clarinets and bassoon singing along with Manson's piano and a trio of voices building to a climactic end.

Talking to Trees is an expansive concept. It is intellectual yet engaging and eccentric. Its theatrical approach and complex harmonies and lyrics may either tickle, irritate, or fascinate. Whatever one's individual reaction, the effort is a large offering of texture and talent.

JW Vibe by Jonathan Widran

“Manson draws upon his prolific dual careers in jazz and classical music – not to mention his penchant for massive, bold ensemble arrangements – to fashion an unforgettable, provocative conversation. For all its grandeur in presentation and purpose, its best moments (usually involving Sutton) are the intimate ones where the music and vocals are gentle and graceful, offering necessary moments of reflection on these crucial matters.”

https://www.jwvibe.com/single-post/bevan-manson-featuring-tierney-sutton-talking-to-trees

BEVAN MANSON

Featuring TIERNEY SUTTON

"Talking to Trees"

While it’s usually artists in the new age realm who are inclined to create projects celebrating nature and the importance of conserving and saving our precious natural resources, veteran composer, pianist and arranger Bevan Manson had a powerful dual motivation urging him to create his epic latest work Talking to Trees.Driven by his concern about global warming and its effects, along with the sense of balance he gets from walking in natural environments, he draws upon his prolific dual careers in jazz and classical music – not to mention his penchant for massive, bold ensemble arrangements – to fashion an unforgettable, provocative conversation.

Well-beloved, nine-time Grammy nominated jazz vocalist Tierney Sutton’s dynamic contributions to five of the nine pieces presented here earns her “featured” credit. No other voice in the genre could so nimbly tackle the sensual subtleties and scat-ability of “All Blues,” the amiably trad-jazz charm of “Take The A-Train” (paired in medley with Bevan’s boisterous, witty original “Banyon Tree”), the dreamy sway of “Willow Weep for Me” and the curious, ever-ascending, meditative jazz adventure of the original “Redwood.”

Yet Sutton is only one of several amazing vocalists to grace the project, which also features Marina Pacowski (who artfully and playfully handles the scat portion of “Take the A-Train”) and Katherine Liner, who adds her excitement and dramatic flair to a woodwind-centric arrangement of “A Sleepin’ Bee.”

On the instrumental side, Bevan’s vision for a tree-centric celebration and call to action includes working with countless top L.A. jazz session cats and The Hollywood Studio Symphony – 76 musicians in all (!) in various orchestral and small ensemble settings. For all its grandeur in presentation and purpose, its best moments (usually involving Sutton) are the intimate ones where the music and vocals are gentle and graceful, offering necessary moments of reflection on these crucial matters. Though the 13 minutes centerpiece tune “SpringSpring” explodes in the middle with one of Manson’s most expressive improvisations, the piece’s most engaging elements find Sutton drawing us into the powerful lyrics of Manson, Juliet Aucreman and Mandy Kahn.

L.A. Jazz Scene by Dee Dee McNeil

“Talking to Trees” is a beautiful tribute to both the natural world and Manson’s unique, polychromatic talents in arranging and composing. He weaves a tapestry of musical ideas, using different sounds, voices, and instruments to create a project as lush and healthy as any of these trees he celebrates on this album.”

https://lajazzscene.buzz/waxing-poetic-reviews/

BEVAN MANSON featuring TIERNEY SUTTON – “TALKING TO TREES” – Tiger Turn Records

Bevan Manson, piano/composer/arranger; Mike Lang, piano; Luca Alemanno, Trey Henry, Edwin Livingston, & Tony Dumas, bass; Kendall Kay, Bernie Dresel, Steve Schaeffer & Joe LaBarbera, drums; MB Gordy, hand percussion; Brian Kilgore, congas/hand percussion; Bernie Dresel, percussion; Tom Rizzo, guitar; Gayle Levant, harp; Joe Locke, vibraphone; Nancy Mathison, clarinet/bass clarinet; Phil O’Connor, bass clarinet; Nick Akdag & Phoebe Ray, bassoon; Geoff Nudell & Don Foster, clarinet; Bob Sheppard & Sara Andon, flute; Danny Janklow, alto saxophone; Damon Zick & Brian Scanlan, soprano saxophone; Ed Neumeister, trombone; Ira Nepus, trombone & conch shell; Jonathan Davis, oboe; Gordon Au, trumpet; Rick Todd, French horn. STRINGS: Lucas Lechowski, violin solo; Amy Hershberger, Alyssa Park, violin; Luke Maurer, viola; Tim Loo, cello. VOICES: Tierney Sutton & Katherine Liner, lead vocals; Marina Pacowski, scat vocal; Mukti Garceau, Devon Davidson, Filippo Voltaggio, Matthew Lewis, Leslie Sultanian & Brent Wilson, voices. Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jeff Schindler

Bevan Manson has a premise about weaving vocalists into his arrangements, not to mention using over 70 musicians on this project.

“Personally, I’m often drawn to integrating the singers into lavish instrumental textures and narratives,” he writes in his liner notes.

I can clearly hear his concept on “All Blues” using Tierney Suttons sweet soprano voice like a horn, lacing through the chord changes, on-point and needle perfect with pitch and creativity. Manson opens his CD with this familiar Miles Davis jazz standard.

This tune is followed by “Banyon Tree” that becomes a medley with “Take the A-Train.” Manson fattens his arrangements with “The Hollywood Studio Symphony.” The Lucas Lechowski violin solo is outstanding.

Manson attended the prestigious Eastman School of Music and moved to Boston after graduating. It was there he met Sutton and became an admirer of what he calls her ‘meticulous singing style.’ After 13 years on the East Coast, he moved to Northern California to teach at UC Berkeley as Director of UC Jazz. Next, he relocated to Los Angeles, 20 years ago, currently splitting his time between Los Angeles and Albuquerque.

On “Willow Weep for Me” Bevan Manson’s style and approach on piano is spotlighted. I love the harmonics he hears and shares on his instrument. Luca Alemanno takes a noteworthy bass solo, although brief.

This album features 76 musicians in different orchestral ensemble settings, from large to small, with Manson on piano. Los Angeles offered him the opportunity of plucking legendary talent from a huge river of A-list jazz musicians in the Southern California basin. Bevan Manson’s love of nature, and especially trees, is the point of this work of art.

“I love taking walks in natural environments. It gives you a feeling of balance. The Japanese have a term for this – forest bathing. It’s not only good for your health, but it also taps into spiritual feelings. After seeing all the destruction caused by fires in California, I’m becoming more and more concerned that the natural world is in danger,” Bevan Manson explains.

Obvious on “Dance of the Mangrove Trees,” Manson also finds a lovely balance between European classical music and America’s own indigenous music called jazz.