Tiffany Austin Quintet: Music of the Harlem Renaissance

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Tiffany Austin Quintet

Music of the Harlem Renaissance

Feinstein’s at the Nikko, San Francisco, CA, 9/10/16

Reviewed by Steve Murray for Cabaret Scenes 

tiffany-austin-cabaret-scenes-magazine_212Tiffany Austin had a tough choice to make after graduating from the U.C.-Berkeley Law School. She’d been singing on three continents for years, so she chose music, and hasn’t looked back since. Singing a few selections from her 2015 CD Nothing but Soul, a tribute to songs written by or associated with Hoagy Carmichael, plus those meant for a future show on the music of Harlem, Austin displayed her R&B, soul and jazz influences accompanied by pianist Eddie Mendenhall, bassist Aneesa Strings and drummer Leon Joyce.

“Drop Me Off in Harlem,” (Duke Ellington/Nick Kenny) finds Austin scatting like her mentor, Ella Fitzgerald. After singing  1931’s “I Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl” (Clarence Williams/Dally Small/Tim Brymn), Austin offered her original “Sugar Cookie” in a nod to Bessie Smith. She also gave us a delicious, bluesy “Send Me to The ‘Lectric Chair” (George Brooks). From her Hoagy tribute CD, she offers a fresh, bouncy version of “Star Dust” and an upbeat, swinging “Baltimore Oriole.”

Austin combines traditional blues, R&B and soul into a jazz-infused contemporary mix that suits her voice well. Her arrangements are sharp and concise and I look forward to her full Harlem Renaissance show.

Steve Murray

Always interested in the arts, Steve was encouraged to begin producing and, in 1998, staged four, one-man vehicles starring San Francisco's most gifted performers. In 1999, he began the Viva Variety series, a live stage show with a threefold mission to highlight, support, and encourage gay and gay-friendly art in all the performance forms, to entertain and document the shows, and to contribute to the community by donating proceeds to local non-profits. The shows utilized the old variety show style popularized by his childhood idol Ed Sullivan. He’s produced over 150 successful shows, including parodies of Bette Davis’s gothic melodramedy Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte and Joan Crawford’s very awful Trog. He joined Cabaret Scenes 2007 and enjoys the writing and relationships he’s built with very talented performers.