Jennifer Truesdale, Tom Appleman, Juli Gort Finn
Jennifer Truesdale Band sang and played some sophisticated boogie during its two hour show at The Burren in Somerville, Massachusetts last Saturday night. Those of you who saw all the notices for this show but ended up not going missed out on a treat for your ears, heart, and soul. Not only did Truesdale exercise the full range of vocal ability, often wrapping her voice around a lively melody, she made the audience feel what her songs are about. There is a reason Truesdale prefers to live in the same neighborhood as blues, soul, and old school R&B. She knows that’s the best music to express her kind of ability.
Truesdale and company opened with “I Need You Tonight” from her latest release Though The Circle. The band created an easy going R&B texture around her svelte voice. She captured the essence of old school R&B from the 1960s Stax era, sinking more into her silkiness as she went along, enunciated her meaningful lyrics and keeping the vibe in every open space. Going more down tempo for “Thinking Of You,” Truesdale showcased how she can how she can stretch out the resonance in her voice, a sprawling vocal, sustaining notes, pleasing, evocative, and soothing. Swirling organ from Andrew Beckman and an ever rising saxophone presence from Ririka Tokushige augmented Truesdale’s vibe.
Truesdale can also rock right out when she feels good and ready. Her more rambunctious, uptempo tune “Driving Home” found her and her band mates in good, tight form. Truesdale showed she easily switch gear, going back to mellow. She and her crew tackled the Etta James number “Cry Like A Rainy Day.” Truesdale moved her band through this ballad like a classic chanteuse, complete with smoky organ notes and John Mulroy’s forlorn piano tinkling. Meanwhile, bass player Tom Appleman played a smooth, emotive, deep line just beneath Truesdale’s voice that made every vocal notes shine in bright contrast. New Truesdale tune “What Can I Do” featured her using a low key vocal over a mid tempo horn swell. She traveled well over a bulbous landscape of bucking groove, effusive horns, and frothy, bluesy organ. The bucking groove provided by drummer Jerry Velona
Kit Holliday, Lydia Harrell, JohnGrant The Third
Throwing in the Aretha cover “Baby, I Love You” worked to show Truesdale’s influence as well as backing singers JohnGrant The Third, Lydia Harrell, and Kit Holliday. The simple chorus had a fullness here that carried the song well. A vibrant trumpet, courtesy of Hiro Tokushige was another emotive high point in this song. Next up, the muscular crawling groove of “Love Me Like A Man” forced Truesdale to show more aggression in her sultry delivery. She showed she can challenge the real man this song is directed toward. Also marked by Julie Gort Finn’s searing guitar phrase, this piece kept the audience glued to its many moving parts.
While she was delving into covers, Truesdale whipped out her arrangement of John Fogerty’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain.” She stretched her vocals, timbre, pitch, everything to turn the old rock ballad into something bluesy, soulful, something driven by passion. A Ririka Tokushige tenor sax phrase laid out a secondary blues feeling behind Truesdale’s voice which was also deeply, richly, augmented by the backing vocalists. She and her band stretched this song out into the banner of bluesy soul she re-envisioned it as.
Truesdale’s “Road To Nowhere” found her horn section capturing the feeling of a nighttime city in an earlier time. Truesdales’ svelte old time radio voice blended with the sonic landscape created around her. Changing gears again, Truesdale and company went into the sassy, dangerous groove of “Daydreaming.” The upper register instruments sneaked around her voice, following a mischievous groove, Truesdale’s voice brassy enough to match the effusion coming from each instrument.
The Joss Stone version of |”Some Kind Of Wonderful” came across more soulful than than the pop original, Truesdale’s heartfelt delivery cutting through the smorgasbord of R&B mesh. Singing beautifully together on “Sunrise,” Truesdale and Kit Holliday offered perfect coos and sustains. Truesdale went into her 1960s influenced “Take A Trip Inside My Mind,” making it run like a river through its changes, verses, chorus while her voice blended seamlessly with the instruments, like something psychedelic, something you can listen to while enjoying some good stuff until you see God.
Juli Gort Finn
Aside from her affinity for rearranging popular rock, blues, and R&B songs, Truesdale also likes to perform other artists renditions of songs they themselves did not record. Her take on the Etta James’ version of The Eagles “Take It To The Limit” resulted in a three dimensional blues version, something that made one appreciate the kaleidoscope of possibilities with this wider, more sultry version, a fuller, feeling with so many singers and players fleshing it out with blues vocals and plenty of instrumental thickness.
Another favorite trick of Truesdale’s is to take Stephen Stills’ “Love The One You’re With,” play with its genre, and run it like an R&B classic while maintaining its huge expression of fulfilling companionship.
As with all Jennifer Truesdale Band shows, this was an experience. Every audience member likely felt what Truesdale put across with her originals, inspired cover selections, and her own arrangements of other’ standards. While her voice is beautiful, resonant, and shiny, she has a strong vocal personality that welds together many instruments, genres, arrangements. Last Saturday night, Truesdale treated a packed Barren audience to the grander package of all she has to offer in concert.
