Miss Tess: Press

On Darling, oh Darling  – Miss Tess is true jazz, baby. She's saucy, sassy, and sexy as all get out. Her songs are smart and edgy. They sound like they could have come from another era completely. The musicians are terrific, as they really get what Miss TEss is doing. Their playing elevates the project. If you like Eilen Jewell's jazziness, you'll love Miss Tess, who delivers big time. Darling, oh Darling is one smashing fine album. A sweet find!

WE LOVE A PARADE: Miss Tess & The Bon Ton Parade manage to pull off that tightrope musical trick that is modern vintage: They write new songs that sound like tunes from the 1920s and 1930s, without being twee or derivative.

Even better than I expected: Miss Tess & The Bon Ton Parade. Although I enjoyed the CD, I was expecting yet another generic nuevo-swing band. Au contraire. Miss Tess and her outfit offered up first rate songs, tight musicianship and an engaging stage presence, even under daunting weather conditions. I can still picture a windswept Tess gamely strumming guitar while her bandmates cradled cups of hot coffee in their frozen hands.

Boston singer-songwriter Miss Tess has always had the pipes and the taste to carry off her various ventures into country, blues, and multi-hued swing, but Darling, Oh Darling underlines her overall sound. In the past, that sound has been defined by her voice and the sweet strum and sting of her vintage Weymann electric guitar, but on this set of 12 originals (plus one alternate), it’s the arrangements, with some carefully deployed special guests, that make the difference.

That means various combinations of growling muted trombone and trumpet, swing clarinet, huffing Ben Webster–like tenor sax, boogie-woogie piano, pedal steel guitar, subtly mixed ooh-ooh-bop-bop-bop backing vocals, and brush-driven drums. There’s also a spare banjo ballad and, in “I Don’t Wanna See You Anymore,” her most overt rockabilly rave-up, a brash kiss-off that’s a departure from her usual wistful resignation and wised-up optimism.

Only one love song here maybe faces its subject too head-on, but that’s more than made up for by “Time Can Take the Pain Away,” a slow waltz anchored by tuba and trumpet that turns to full brass choir, reeds, and light martial drumming before giving way to flute. It’s got gravity, but it’s also lighter than air — a good description of Tess herself. Long-time bandmate Alec Spiegelman arranged the horns, and he’s never served her better.

MISS TESS
Darling, Oh Darling

Miss Tess has grace, and the chops, to deliver an album of new material brimming with ‘30’s era jazz and swing or bouncing energy of the 1950’s. Tess sounds transported from decades past without ending up a caricature. She’s sultry, sassy, fun, and all heart. While steeped in the era that spawned Fats Waller or Bessie Smith she’s completely her own voice, capable of stepping outside traditional sounds altogether.

She’s grown leaps and bounds since the 2007’s Modern Vintage - her voice warmer and more lighthearted, and variety on Darling, Oh Darling is abundant. All of the songs are written by Miss Tess, no covers or standards here, the material ranging from steamy jazz to swing and country rave-ups. Her voice is what the word romantic means; the sound easily a soundtrack to relationships at their best or a little rocky. It’s uplifting and caressing; imagine Sade or Linda Ronstadt performing in the Jazz Age.. The band is tight, the playing sharp and steadfastly inspired.

‘Oh No’ sonically informs the ear to what’s at work here. It begins monotone, as if pouring out from an old radio, then comes forward in stereo, how we’re used to hearing music. It’s fuller, richer, and regardless, it still sounds timeless and effervescent. Miss Tess doesn’t stick to a single period, from the country stroll of ‘Love’ to the on-fire swagger of ‘That Oo Oo Oo,’ the rockabilly showstopper ‘I Don’t Want to See You Anymore’ or the carnival feel of ‘Time Can Take the Pain Away.’ Parts of Darling, Oh Darling are downright sexy, like moments of new love and candlelit rooms, notably the heavy horns and easy tempo of ‘Riding Home,’ where her low voice accompanies them, singing “Ridin, Ridin, Ridin home to you/There’s nothing I’d rather do.” It doesn’t get any better, more exemplary, than that. It’s the sound of love, of longing, of someone dug in deep. But Miss Tess illuminates the sadder side with similar strength and earnestness. The title track is a heartbreaker, in which the narrator sings to their lover of not worrying about them leaving, that their love is true. It’s bittersweet, yet tender regardless of its austerity.

What’s imperative, and fantastic, about an artist like Miss Tess is that she sounds real, the music equally real. Her singing is like someone looking you in the eye, the feeling genuine and meaningful. Miss Tess doesn’t attempt to borrow an old style; she exudes a breathy style of performing that’s both timeless and new.

The thrift-shop clothes, the vintage Weymann guitar, the demure stage name – all those clues signify, right from the start, that Miss Tess plans to take us on a retro roadtrip. The vocal stylings of the past perfectly suit her bell-like voice — more Madeleine Peyroux or Zooey Deschanel than Norah Jones – with its offbeat blend of sassiness and winsome charm.

Gimmicks like that can easily fall flat, and I must admit I felt a little trepidation as I first put Miss Tess’s newest CD, Darling, Oh Darling, on my player. It didn’t take long, though, for me to relax and breathe a sigh of relief. Miss Tess has the chops to pull it off.

To classify this Boston-based singer-songwriter as merely a jazz singer would miss the point – she’s a musical chameleon, recalling at various moments Tom Waits’ barfly humor, the cabaret-rock of Beirut, or even the wink-wink wit of early Bette Midler. On previous albums (this is her fifth), Miss Tess has included a fair number of jazz standards, but Darling, Oh Darling takes a bigger leap — Miss Tess has written every track, revolving like a vintage jukebox through a whole catalog of musical styles. What’s impressive is how thoroughly she has absorbed the old-school genres – these aren’t just catchy songs with retro arrangements, you’d swear they were 30- or 40-year-old standards. She’s equally adept at the fast-talking scat of “That Ooh Ooh Ooh” and the Dixieland strut of “Saving All My Love”; she can shift seamlessly from the gentle oompah waltz of “Time Can Take the Pain Away” to the rockabilly kiss-off of “I Don’t Wanna See You Anymore.” There’s a risk involved, of course; some of the genres she explores don’t suit her voice or my predilections. Nevertheless, the lady gets top marks for trying.

Her stylized songs – both tongue-in-cheek toe-tappers and campy strolls – are a hoot, but the numbers that really won me over were more mainstream tracks, songs that prove she’s got substance as well as style. There’s the title track, “Darling Oh Darling,” a yearning two-step with poetic lyrics like “There’s a beating heart under my skin / It took all I had just to let you in / Tonight,” sung against a plangent pedal steel. The lilting “Love” is a tuneful (and refreshingly upbeat) meditation on the fleeting nature of romance. “Awake,” with its brooding dissonances and wistful banjo shuffle, crystallizes an almost existential moment between waking and sleeping. She’s got a wonderful ear for melody, whether it’s a catchy upbeat number or a haunting slow song; her tunes take surprising turns, but it doesn’t take long before you find yourself humming along.

Credit must also be given to Miss Tess’s backing band – a lean but multitalented ensemble that includes Paul Dilley on upright bass, Gillian DeLear on drums, and the marvelous Alec Spiegelman on just about any woodwind instrument you could ask for. Spiegelman’s clarinet in particular lends extraordinary texture to several tracks – when was the last time a clarinet trill made you laugh out loud?

I’ve been listening to this CD for days now, wearing off its initial strangeness, settling into its softly burnished groove. What started out sounding to me like a novelty album is just endearing now, full of oddball personality. Unfortunately, in the decentralized music business of today, an offbeat charmer like this record could easily get lost, dropped into the bottomless pit between jazz and alternative music. Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen – this record is too much fun to go unheard.

Among the wellspring of neo-folk artists re-imagining the old fashioned sound of early-era jazz and blues is Boston songstress/guitarist Miss Tess, whose sultry rich vocals bring a late night speakeasy feel to the Bon Ton Parade's vibrant twang-tinged melodies, which are marked by the tasteful sax and clarinet playing of Alec Spiegelman, upright bass plucking of Ben Davis, and the light drumming touch of Matt Meyer. Playful little ditties are interspersed with mournful love songs, like the title track off her band's new fifth album, Darling, oh, Darling, about a woman who can't convince her man that her love is true. "I know it's hard but I've been trying, now I've gotta keep from crying, darling, oh, darling, darling," she cries, the last darling drawn out in a gorgeous heartbroken sigh.

Miss Tess and her super-skilled Bon Ton Parade band embodied the Music City Roots spirit by proving that music from the past ain’t old if its good. It’s just timeless. Drawing on the templates and textures of the 1930s, she swung and crooned through a set of original songs, adding some tasty licks on her 1920s archtop guitar.

BOSTON, MA – Miss Tess’s music is of a piece with her calculated stage persona. She’s always Miss Tess, even when she’s returning your phone call for an interview. Her thing is original tunes and covers that draw on early jazz and blues, with a bit of country thrown in, and she likes to perform in vintage dresses as well as play a sweet, full-toned 1920s Weymann electric guitar. On her new Live on the Road, she covers Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose,” Bessie Smith’s “Baby Doll,” and the Gaskill/McHugh standard “I Can’t Believe That You’re in Love with Me” — which, as she says on the disc, “I learned off a Peggy Lee record.” The Bon Ton Parade, meanwhile, put the emphasis on swing, with acoustic bass and drums, and the well-schooled local jazz reedman Alec Spiegelman playing saxophone and clarinet.

Tess — who plays the Regattabar April 7 — doesn’t have as plush an instrument as Price, but the two share an honest approach to musicmaking, and you can hear her emotional directness in both her pliant phrasing and her songwriting. Home, her 2004 disc of 12 impressively mature originals, was recorded with just her musician parents backing her (father Marv on reeds and pedal-steel, mother Kathy on bass). The opening “When Tomorrow Comes” is typical: as well structured as a standard, a statement of fateful optimism. On disc (which includes 2006’s Modern Vintage) and live, her playfulness and humor are also evident. On Live on the Road, the upstroke of her guitar on “I’m on Top of the World” drives the band’s swing, and you can hear the smile in her voice. That and her up-tempo insomnia swinger “Can’t Sleep” are like hits waiting to happen. Somewhere.

Of course, it’s not out of the question for a 27-year-old to be playing such old music — Madeleine Peyroux has built a career on a Billie Holiday croon and an older swing style of playing. But Tess found her own way into the repertoire. A middle-class kid in suburban Maryland, she grew up with parents who played things like “Honeysuckle Rose” around the house, and it wasn’t unusual for Tess to come home and find her parents singing and playing.

Her first guitar lessons were from jazz players, so jazz chords came naturally to her writing and playing. She’d road-trip on vacations, traveling with her guitar. One year, she found herself at the Telluride Folk Festival in Colorado, and she stayed at a house shared by folk singer Libby Kirkpatrick. “When I saw her perform, I was floored, and when I got her CD and I was driving around the mountains listening to it in Colorado, it just hit me: ‘I want to be a singer!’ She laughs as she tells me the story at the 1369 Coffee House in Inman Square.

After college, “I was like, ‘Mom, I’m just going to drive around the country with my guitar for a while.’ And she’s like, ‘Honey, why don’t you go somewhere where you can make some connections?’ ”

That, of course, led to a few semesters at Berklee, and voice lessons with esteemed jazz vocalist Lisa Thorson. Tess did record one straight-jazz record, but post-bop wasn’t really her thing. “It crossed my mind, but I think I backed away from it. I want rhythm, I want people to be able to groove. Once you start doing more out stuff, you limit your audience to the people who are educated about jazz, and you just cut off a major part of your audience.”

In the Sweet and Low Down, with the Lake Street Dive rhythm section, she and Price are “learning all these songs we’ve been meaning to learn — rockabilly, Willie Dixon, Mills Brothers, ’40s jazz.” Her new moniker has been part of the deal: “I always wanted a stage name, and my last name just doesn’t flow, it doesn’t sound good. One of my good friends in college always called me Miss Tess. So, okay, Miss Tess. It works.”

Miss Tess wants you to have fun. She'll even provide the soundtrack.

For all that her talents have earned her — a Boston Music Award for "Outstanding Folk Artist of the Year," placement among the finalists in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition, and critical raves — Miss Tess remains modest and candid about her music.

She considers herself "very lucky to be making a living as a musician." She adds, "Performing is what I work so hard to be able to do. And I am having a good time." She's looking out for you, too.

The artist says she strives "to make it a good show. So I will immerse myself in the performance in hopes to take the audience members along for the ride." Her approach to this task is quixotically fresh — she reaches back into the great American Songbook for inspiration and delivers what she calls "Modern Vintage."

This is music cut from a different cloth than the cardboard-stiff newness of more trend driven singer-songwriters, and it's appeal more closely resembles your favorite pair of jeans: the lovingly broken-in elegance that inspires confident ease.

Miss Tess can take a strutting, bluesy melody that might have been penned in the golden age of club jazz and turn it into a wink at the post-modern world. "Stoned" from her recent album Live on the Road is just such a swinging little number. Imagine Peggy Lee riffing about friends with benefits. "You know I only really miss you when I'm stoned/And I only want a kiss when I'm alone..." Miss Tess croons.

The musical style she draws from is rooted in her upbringing. Mom and Dad are both part-time musicians. Mom on stand-up bass, Dad filling in on sax. In fact, both accompanied their daughter on Home, her debut solo release of original songs.

At home there was jazz, and especially swing music. Her folks still play a role in expanding Miss Tess' musical horizons. She frequently gets phone calls along the lines of, "You've got to hear this!" As a family, she admits, "We're obsessed with obscure music."

And living in Boston is a stimulus of different sorts. "Boston is a singer-songwriter center," she says. "You get to hear all sorts of music." She listens to a lot of rock, but she has great respect for some legendary American female vocalists: Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Bessie Smith.

"Baby Doll," a Bessie Smith tune that made its way onto Live on the Road, fits the album's groove seamlessly. That groove is Miss Tess' signature. Bringing this tradition forward, re-imagining it for a new audience, might even be her mission statement.

Of a recent gig at the renowned Washington, D.C. club Blues Alley, she says, "We filled up the room. And it wasn't necessarily jazz fans." She feels the great thing about this music is how well it travels. The reason? "It's such an honest, soulful way to communicate with an audience."

With a singing voice that embraces the smoky lower registers as readily as it swings into jazz-scatting high gear, Miss Tess renders torch song, be-bop, ragtime, and just about all the colors of roots music in-between with equal zest.

This week she kicks off a three-week tour with longtime bandmates Alex Spiegelman on sax and clarinet, Paul Dilley on upright bass, and a new drummer, Matt Meyer. This will be her third visit to Charleston. Our take: don't miss it. And be prepared to have fun.

AUGUSTA, GA - From the moment “Stormy Baby” opens Live on the Road by Miss Tess & the Bon Ton Parade, it’s hard not to imagine oneself sitting on a porch lost in the shade of a willow tree somewhere deep in the south, perhaps sipping sweet tea and rubbing an old dog between the ears. Miss Tess just brings that out in her music.

The funny thing about Miss Tess & The Bon Ton Parade is that she’s from Boston. Still, the dynamic songstress brings out something primal in her music. Containing 13 soulful, bluesy folk tracks recorded live up and down the East Coast, "Live on the Road" channels the spirit of the old time speakeasy but mixes it with a hundred other styles. Often soft yet still forceful, this six-piece based around the lovely, awesomely retro and upbeat voice of Miss Tess delves into all the musical dishes of times past.

But, don’t think of this band as something dredged up from dusty old records. No, Miss Tess & The Bon Ton Parade show that while the classics are alive and kicking, there’s still room for injecting a little modern jazz, folk, spoken word and blues. Sometimes, with the attitude and the frenzied horns, Miss Tess and the gang remind a little of a sweeter voiced Tom Waits.

The edge of “Streetcorner” and the deep bluesy horns on “Pokey McMumbles” give credit to the claim that Miss Tess plays a style called ‘Modern Vintage.’ The traditional sound of “Can’t Sleep” goes along so well with “I’m on Top of the World.” And these are just a few of the amazing tracks on this album.

After garnering critical praise from the Boston Music Awards for “outstanding folk artist of the year,” as well as winning the 27th Biannual Open Mic Shootout, and snagging a spot with Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett on the Cayamo cruise, Miss Tess & The Bon Ton Parade are currently on tour in support of their live album.

Although it may be true that every musician is a dreamer, only the good ones can convince you to join in on their fantasies. Armed with a rhythm guitar, a songbook full of down-on-your-luck lyrics, and a seemingly endless supply of fancy hats, Miss Tess is reimagining the golden age of jazz in 21st-century Boston and taking the rest of us along for the ride.

Tess finds her muse in anything old-fashioned, harking back to that bygone era when musicians wore suits or dresses and jazz was played as often in ballrooms as in bars. Accompanied by The Bon Ton Parade, a small ensemble that leans heavily on brushed drums and saxophone, the group taps into that laid-back cabaret sound that appeals to the vagabond lurking inside of all of us.

Tess has recorded four albums of standards and original songs, but the best way to experience her is live. A her smoky voice drags seductively behind the rhythm, she transforms even the dingiest barroom into a dance floor and tempts you–for one night, at least–to drift back to a classier time.

"Call it what you will, Miss Tess' music is turning heads"

"The next Boston-area musical sensation"

"Locals on the Verge: MISS TESS" The Maryland transplant called one of her albums "Modern Vintage," and that neatly sums up her crisp approach to old-time jazz, folk, and blues. After a recent contest win, Tess will hit the high seas next month as part of a music cruise in the esteemed company of artists including Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, and Patty Griffin. No doubt they will be as charmed by her classic covers and clever originals as Boston audiences."

"Imagine the sultry jazz halls of the 1930s and 40s, people crowding torward the stage to get a closer listen to the mysterious voice spilling from the microphone. She [Miss Tess] sings about subjects that the modern generation can relate to, although there is an elegance to her voice that could only have been born in another era. It captures you like a thread of smoke, seeping into your skin, and staying long after you've gone. True to her grassroots style, Tess's connection to the audience is incredibly personal, making it a better show than many by popular musicians"

"Miss Tess takes old music and makes it sound fresh. She also makes new
music with a sense of history and context to it. No matter what label
you want to put on it, it's damn good music. Period."

"If Billie Holiday and Chet Atkins had a musical baby, it would be Miss Tess. With a calmness that belies the intensity in her music, Miss Tess will cement a place in your music- loving heart with her first note."

"Shot out of a rag-folk canon, Miss Tess and The Bon Ton Parade meld the sweet lowdown of Billie Holiday and the modern-retro bounce of Jolie Holland."

Big Band Dreams: As a child, singer/guitarist Miss Tess fell asleep to the sounds of her dad's big band rehearsing in the basement. Perhaps is was her big-band-infused dreams that gave her the voice of a different era."

"Miss Tess' 'Modern Vintage' is just that: a fresh - and refreshing - take on classic themes from a bygone era."

"Scrumptious old-time jazz and blues"