The Tierney Sutton Band closes out the 2024 Wichita Jazz Festival on Saturday, April 20, with a performance at Wichita's Orpheum Theatre.
Sutton is a nine-time Grammy-nominated vocalist whose latest recording, "Good People," is a collaboration with the collective San Gabriel 7. Inspired by a number of world events and some of her deepest-held beliefs, the collection spotlights Sutton's inimitable vocal style, sense of humor and commitment to social justice.
Saturday's performance at the Orpheum will find her joined by Clarence Penn, Trey Henry and Mitch Forman.
Sutton recently spoke with KMUW about "Good People" and more from her home in Los Angeles.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
"Good People" is a record that, to me, really speaks to this moment in time. What can you tell me about what informed the writing of the material?
The San Gabriel 7 approached me. They've done these projects with several other artists. One of the last projects they did was with the great Danish jazz singer Sinne Eeg, who actually wrote the music for one of the songs on "Good People." They collaborate with singers and have them write songs; either the singer just writes the songs or finds people to write with or, sometimes, they collaborate with members of the San Gabriel group. One of the lyrics that I wrote is "Lullaby for Chris." Chris Gordon is one of the founders of the group, and he was one the people who approached me for this project. I wanted to do it because I wanted a fire under my butt to write.
The title track, "Good People," [was inspired by the fact that] the majority of my time in the pandemic was spent researching the history of racism in America and learning a bunch of things I didn't know before or [that] I didn't know clearly before. By the time this opportunity came up, I knew at least one of the songs was going to be about that work. The guys thought it was great and supported me.
Certainly, looking back at 2020 and the start of the pandemic, there was material to draw from, starting with the murder of George Floyd.
I had been hosting in my home a group since 2017 that was looking into the history of the United States and seeking some ways to heal racism. That was inspired by the fact that I am Baha'i. My religious community and the national leadership of our community said to the American Baha'is, "You guys should start holding some conversations about this and find a way to talk about this issue and be really, really informed about this issue." I started to do that.
I was having groups in my home before the pandemic and George Floyd and then when the pandemic started, those groups went online, and I started participating in a group with about 100 people and then ended up being one of the facilitators in that group because I was already pretty deep into this stuff. It seems to be an endless ocean. I was pretty sensitized to it before George Floyd's death, sadly. Once that happened, the entire nation was kind of becoming a little more aware.
Whenever I undertake a project like that, whether it's learning more about racism or housing practices...whatever, I'm always struck not only by what I learn about the topic but what I learn about myself. What did you learn about yourself in that process?
What we like to do in America is find some other time when bad things happened, where injustice occurred, and we had nothing to do with it. What I found out about myself is that my father's education, the houses that I grew up in, the colleges that I went to, the schools that I attended, that all of those things were things that would have been, for a variety of reasons, denied to my Black peers. It was kind of startling.
In the song "Good People," I sing, "All that we have/you know that we've earned." We want to think that we want to believe that in America, but when you really look deep into this issue, unfortunately, that is simply not the case. That doesn't mean that people haven't worked hard, and it doesn't mean that people had any intention of doing these things, it just means that there are systems that are in place and there's longstanding stuff that has been in place that has caused where we are now and has caused this big wealth gap and caused our neighborhoods to be segregated and all the rest of it. It didn't happen by accident, and it didn't happen because people simply chose to live with people of their own race. When you start looking at your own role in it and the things that [you] got to have and do, it changes your perspective.
I wonder if all of this had a particular resonance because you've spent your life performing jazz, a music that originates in Black America.
Definitely. I've always known that I was a beneficiary, and I was a follower in a path that was largely created by [Black people]. The heroes of our music are African Americans. The interesting thing about jazz is that it's one of the only American music forms that hasn't fought the idea that its heroes and originators were Black people. All the other musics had a ton of originators that were Black people. They're talking about that now because Beyonce has a country album out, and there were a lot of pioneers of country music that were Black.
The roots of that music are very similar to the roots of jazz and rock 'n' roll. Of course, we know that the originators of that were Black, but it was such a segregated society that they had to have the Elvis Presleys and other white artists in order for it to be played and accepted by the mainstream. The nice thing about jazz, I think, is that at least there hasn't been a denial that that's where the music comes from. It's not that white people didn't do it or don't do it, it's just that there was no attempt to say, "This did not come from the Black experience and from Black artists."
Along with the more serious side of things on the record, it's also evident that your sense of humor is intact.
[Laughs.]
I know humor is something that keeps me sane.
For sure.
Can you talk a little bit about tempering some of those serious conversations with that humor?
When I was thinking about the songs for the record, my husband sent me this little blues and I thought, "What am I going to write?" I decided to write about my daily life and how I lose stuff all the time. I lose stuff. I lose my keys all the time. So, I wrote a song called "Where Did I Put My Keys?" I did not have to method act. The other song that's like that is called "Monkey Mind." It's just about how overwhelmed we are with the 24-hour news cycle and hearing about every catastrophe all over the world and getting all this information that we're supposed to analyze and take in. I think it's overwhelming for anybody. I think all of us are overwhelmed. I think all of us get too much information. There's no way to absorb everything. Sinne's melody is really great, and I thought, "I'm sure I can do something here." So, I just dug into my little bag of rhymes and came up with that.
The thing about losing your keys is relatable for sure. And, if you're like me, when you're looking for them, you begin to look in increasingly strange places. "I know! I probably put them in the freezer!"
In the song, I say, "I checked the first place." The other one that is pretty on point for me is, "If you live with somebody and you lose things, do you get to the point where you blame someone else?" They moved it. It's their fault. [Laughs.]
Yes. The cat did it.
Exactly. My cat just walked by me right now.
