Susan Tobocman - Touch & Go

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2020
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:32
Size: 135,6 MB
Art: Front

(6:12)  1. What'll I Do
(5:08)  2. Wichita Lineman
(5:02)  3. The Man I Love
(4:32)  4. Make Believe
(5:44)  5. Leaves of Absence
(4:22)  6. Help!
(4:34)  7. I Could Get Used to This
(5:05)  8. The Way to You
(4:13)  9. Touch & Go
(3:27) 10. Where Is Love
(5:55) 11. You Only Live Twice
(4:14) 12. Help! (Alternate Version)

A triple-threat musician with significant talent as a vocalist, composer and arranger, Susan Tobocman's path to jazz was an unconventional one. Her early interest in poetry led to a scholarship that took her from her hometown, Detroit, to New York, for study at Columbia University. That in turn led to an interest in musical theater, followed by a stint managing the Jimi Hendrix-founded Electric Lady Studios, and then some touring work with the Tom Tom Club. Only afterward, during her early 30s, did the jazz bug finally bite. And four albums later, Touch & Go shows her long musical journey to have been well worthwhile.

Tobocman's choice of material is itself evidence of her musically omnivorous tendencies. Standard jazz fare is present, like George Gershwin's "The Man I Love" and Irving Berlin's "What'll I Do," and Tobocman's own compositions are solidly in the jazz vein, often with a bit of Latin flair, as on the graceful "Leaves of Absence" and the bossa nova-based "The Way to You." But she also offers an affecting version of Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman," along with a couple intriguing takes on early Lennon/McCartney ("Help!"), and if that weren't enough, a jazz waltz-inflected "You Only Live Twice," a clever cover of the James Bond theme. It's a testament to Tobocman's arranging skills that each of these pieces feels distinctively hers, their diverse stylistic origins subsumed by her smart, listener-friendly jazz instincts.

Tobocman's warm alto is perfect for conveying the emotional content of her music. She's not a particularly flashy singer, but her phrasing is quite creative, capable of doing justice to the deep longing at the heart of "Wichita Lineman" and the playful spiritedness of "The Man I Love." And her musical chops extend well beyond her abilities as a vocalist, as two of her compositions, "Leaves of Absence" and the album's title track, don't even feature vocals; yet the music stands on its own, with well-designed melodies and lots of room for Tobocman's band to shine. And what a band it is. Guitarist Pete McCann, who gets co-producing credit here with Tobocman, has worked with the singer for years, and his versatility, whether on acoustic or electric guitar, is consistently valuable. Joel Frahm brings his characteristically lyrical sensibility, with his floating soprano sax on "Leaves of Absence" being especially memorable. Pianist Henry Hey, bassist Matt Pavolka and drummer Michael Sarin provide the rhythmically nimble foundation for Tobocman's music. And with cellist Dave Eggar adding richness to several of the tracks his winsome contributions to "Wichita Lineman" and "Help!" are crucial Tobocman has all she needs to bring these imaginative arrangements to life.By Troy Dostert https://www.allaboutjazz.com/touch-and-go-susan-tobocman-soliterra-records 17561

Personnel: Susan Tobocman: voice / vocals; Joel Frahm: saxophone, tenor; Dave Eggar : cello; Pete McCann: guitar; Henry Hey: keyboards; Matt Pavolka: bass; Michael Sarin: drums.

Touch & Go

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Susan Tobocman - Live In Detroit With The Cliff Monear Trio

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2012
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 76:54
Size: 177,0 MB
Art: Front

(5:28)  1. How Deep Is the Ocean?
(5:39)  2. I Never Meant to Dream of You
(5:28)  3. When Lights Are Low
(6:54)  4. I Got Lost In His Arms
(5:33)  5. Leaves of Absence
(4:07)  6. Wild Is the Wind
(6:00)  7. I Love Being Here With You
(7:26)  8. Nice and Easy
(3:46)  9. Where Do You Start?
(5:10) 10. I Don't Think of Him Anymore
(4:46) 11. Make Someone Happy
(7:55) 12. Besame Mucho
(3:52) 13. Again It's Spring
(4:43) 14. It's Alright With Me

Singer/composer/lyricist/producer/arranger, Susan Tobocman has been making a name for herself among audiences and musicians alike on the New York City jazz scene for a number of years. Whether leading her own gigs at Zinc Bar (where she was the original artist-in-residence), Cornelia Street Cafe, Flatiron Room, Fine & Rare, Symphony Space, Highline Ballroom, Smalls, the Bitter End, Birdland, Cliff Bell's, Steinway Jazz Gallery, Smoke, or Cleopatra's Needle (among others)- or as the guest of such luminaries as Barry Harris, Al Foster, or the late Doc Cheatham Susan is equally comfortable working as a leader or sideman.

Susan’s extensive repertoire of standards from the familiar to the obscure is distinctly enhanced by her inventive arrangements, in addition to her original compositions, some of which are strictly instrumental. Among her influences, the Detroit-born singer cites Shirley Horn, Carmen Mcrae, Joao Gilberto, Dena Derose, Johnny Mandel, and Andy Bey. Not only is Tobocman the first-prize recipient of the National Scholastic Writing Award for Poetry, she has also received the Ascaplus Composer Grant for the past fifteen consecutive years. Susan collaborates as both composer and lyricist with several of New York’s finest jazz musicians, including pianists Henry Hey and David Hazeltine, trumpeter Jim Rotondi, and trombonist Steve Davis. Her work is signed to renowned jazz publisher/grammy-winner Don Sickler; Susan has also written for and been recorded by Denise Donatelli, Norman Simmons, Allan Harris, and Rodgers Grant among others. https://www.bluellamaclub.com/event/susan-tobocman-quartet

Live In Detroit With The Cliff Monear Trio

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Susan Tobocman, The Cliff Monear Trio - Love from Detroit

Styles: Vocal 
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 58:38
Size: 135,4 MB
Art: Front

(4:12)  1. Let's Face the Music and Dance (Live)
(4:27)  2. The Way to You (Live)
(5:23)  3. I Should Care (Live)
(3:50)  4. Jim (Live)
(3:09)  5. I Could Have Danced All Night (Live)
(3:58)  6. Too Late Now (Live)
(5:51)  7. Fragile (Live)
(3:51)  8. Frim Fram Sauce (Live)
(5:23)  9. Every Time We Say Goodbye (Live)
(4:19) 10. I Wish I Knew (Live)
(5:36) 11. Isn't It a Pity? (Live)
(4:27) 12. Touch and Go (Live)
(4:05) 13. I'll Be Seeing You (Live)

Yes I know, it’s my bio; such an original idea for a musician's website. So here it is, straight from the promo package (scroll down for the real deal)...

Singer/composer/lyricist/producer/arranger Susan Tobocman has been making a name for herself among audiences and musicians alike on both the New York city and Detroit jazz scenes for a number of years. Whether leading her own gigs at Zinc Bar (where she was the original artist-in-residence), cornelia street cafe, Flatiron Room, Fine & Rare, Symphony Space, Highline Ballroom, Smalls, The Bitter End, Birdland, Cliff Bell's, The Blue Llama, Steinway Jazz Gallery, Smoke, 55 Bar, or Cleopatra's Needle (among others) or as the guest of such luminaries as Barry Harris, Al Foster, or the late Doc Cheatham Susan is equally comfortable working as a leader and/or sideman. Susan’s extensive repertoire of standards from the familiar to the obscure is distinctly enhanced by her inventive arrangements In addition to her original  compositions, some of which are strictly instrumental.  Among her influences, the Detroit-born singer cites Shirley Horn, Carmen McRae, Joao Gilberto, Dena DeRose, Johnny Mandel, and Andy Bey.  Not only is Tobocman the first-prize recipient of the prestigious National Scholastic Writing Award For Poetry, she has also received the ASCAPLUS composer grant for the past fifteen consecutive years.  Susan collaborates as both composer and lyricist with several of New York’s finest jazz musicians, including guitarists elliott randall and Pete McCann, pianists Henry Hey and David Hazeltine, trumpeter Jim Rotondi, and trombonist Steve Davis.  her work is signed to renowned jazz publisher/Grammy-winner Don Sickler; susan has also written for and been recorded by Denise Donatelli, norman simmons, Allan Harris, and Rodgers Grant, among others.

Susan’s professional experience includes numerous European tours as featured artist, several Off-Broadway musicals, a varied array of national television and radio jingles, touring as keyboardist and vocalist with Tom Tom Club (Talking Heads sans David Byrne), and appearing on ‘Late Night with David Letterman.’  In addition to session work for the MCA and Atlantic record labels as well as singing background vocals for Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Wailers, Richie Havens, and Garland Jeffries (and more) - Susan is currently featured on four European and three japanese CDs, as well as her own releases entitled Watercolor Dream (first picked up by Mike Longo’s Consolidated Artists label), Live In Detroit  With The Cliff Monear Trio, Love From Detroit with the cliff Monear Trio, and her newest recording Touch and Go.  Susan was also chosen as a featured artist on the Japanese CD compilation Jazz Bar and is currently a signed recording artist on the eponymous DISK UNION label. A re-release of Watercolor Dream is currently available in Japan on the same label, along with Live In Detroit, plus love from detroit was just released worldwide this past april. Her newest recording project entitled Touch and Go (a unique musical departure from her previous offerings) will be available July 31st, 2020. That was exciting, wasn't it?  Now, if we were between sets sitting at the bar, this is more like what I might actually want you to know...

“Words...to sing them is a different thing than it is to speak them. And most especially to write them.  At times they can tumble out, yet other times barely seem to come at all.  But to feel, conceptualize, write and then sing them is a whole other thing for me. At age four I started writing poetry, a year later my first poem was published, and by 15 I had won a national award. Two years later I found myself enrolled in the graduate poetry department at Columbia University, pretty much on my own with not much more than some old records and a tome of teen-angst journals.  But when a professor told me no one (I assumed he was referring to me) should write anything until at least the age of 25, I put the pencil down. A couple of years later I checked out an ad to answer phones at Electric Lady, a well-known recording studio in Greenwich Village, built by Jimi Hendrix.  At the time I thought nothing of it, other than a way to make a few bucks. Three months in I had been anointed with the title of Studio Manager.  I spent close to a decade running top-flight recording studios all over NYC, but not on the ‘right side of the glass.’  On the surface, my work seemed exciting, if not fulfilling - meeting rock stars, going to concerts, sitting in on recording sessions - but instead I always somehow felt as though I was living someone else’s life.  As my 30th birthday approached, I came upon a book about visualizing what one dreams for oneself. Three weeks later I could barely believe it.  There I was - exactly where I had imagined / visualized myself to be (on the road with a famous rock band).

Since I had not yet met the musical love of my life (jazz), my first affair was to sing and play keyboards with the pop-rock band Tom Tom Club. Fast-forward one year, and I was back in New York City, broke, and with no prospects.  I knew I loved this new life; I just hadn’t found my niche.  Knowing virtually nothing about jazz -other than I thought I'd read somewhere it attracted mostly intelligent, progressive and dedicated musicians - this vague idea already had a magnetic pull. I decided to put up an ad at NYU ISO a jazz pianist who would be willing to help a novice like me learn songs but without so much as a dollar (let alone gig) in return.  To my surprise, dozens of pianists showed up at my door! As the fates would allow, one of them was a life-long protege of pianist Barry Harris (a fellow Detroiter), and from there it was as though I was gliding home, only this time to a home I’d never been. I quickly met and befriended myriad creative, talented, and generous musicians who spent countless hours helping me to understand music from the inside out, encouraging me to learn everything I could, so that as a singer - even if I was in no way the most accomplished or experienced - I would at least know how to be professional, thus allowing me to acquire the skills I would need if I were to ever be lucky enough to make a living doing what I truly loved.  To this day, each and every time someone pays me to sing, I feel truly blessed. 

My favorite poet Pablo Neruda once wrote, 'One must achieve a balance between solitude and solidarity, between feeling and action, between the intimacy of one's self, the intimacy of humanity, and the revelation of nature.'  This has always meant so very much to me; I even ended up naming my music publishing company Soliterra Music.  'Soliterra' is not a word in the dictionary; in fact it is a word I dreamt after reading Neruda's quote.  It reminds me of being alone and writing a song, then hearing it come to life as it's played for the first time.  It is truly one of THE most entirely thrilling feelings in my musical lexicon. What’s meaningful to me about being a singer/composer is so multi-faceted that words (prose, anyway) don’t often suffice.  I think that’s why I write - to communicate through the universal language of music, to expand and go deeper, and to lean into the unknown.  I feel incredibly fortunate to have been and continue to be in the company of so many gifted musicians, to earn a living doing so, and to have learned this much already. But even more importantly, to know that there is more to learn, always more. It is a lifelong endeavor, and for that I feel infinitely grateful.” ~ Susan Tobocman, February 2017 https://www.susantobocman.com/bio.html

Love from Detroit

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Susan Tobocman - Watercolor Dream

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2004
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 57:12
Size: 132,6 MB
Art: Front

(5:17)  1. The Ruby and the Pearl
(5:16)  2. Watercolor Dream
(2:57)  3. Lazy Afternoon
(4:31)  4. Close Your Eyes
(4:02)  5. Peel Me a Grape
(8:11)  6. Besame Mucho
(4:25)  7. Feel Like Makin' Love
(3:47)  8. I Never Meant to Dream of You
(3:53)  9. Again It's Spring
(4:16) 10. I Don't Think of Him Anymore
(4:36) 11. He's Out of My Life
(5:55) 12. Close to You

Singer/composer/lyricist/producer/arranger Susan Tobocman has been making a name for herself among audiences and musicians alike on both the New York city and Detroit jazz scenes for a number of years. Whether leading her own gigs at Zinc Bar (where she was the original artist-in-residence), cornelia street cafe, Flatiron Room, Fine & Rare, Symphony Space, Highline Ballroom, Smalls, The Bitter End, Birdland, Cliff Bell's, The Blue Llama, Steinway Jazz Gallery, Smoke, 55 Bar, or Cleopatra's Needle (among others)  or as the guest of such luminaries as Barry Harris, Al Foster, or the late Doc Cheatham  Susan is equally comfortable working as a leader and/or sideman. Susan’s extensive repertoire of standards from the familiar to the obscure is distinctly enhanced by her inventive arrangements In addition to her original  compositions, some of which are strictly instrumental.  Among her influences, the Detroit-born singer cites Shirley Horn, Carmen McRae, Joao Gilberto, Dena DeRose, Johnny Mandel, and Andy Bey.  Not only is Tobocman the first-prize recipient of the prestigious National Scholastic Writing Award For Poetry, she has also received the ASCAPLUS composer grant for the past fifteen consecutive years.  Susan collaborates as both composer and lyricist with several of New York’s finest jazz musicians, including guitarists elliott randall and Pete McCann, pianists Henry Hey and David Hazeltine, trumpeter Jim Rotondi, and trombonist Steve Davis.  her work is signed to renowned jazz publisher/Grammy-winner Don Sickler; susan has also written for and been recorded by Denise Donatelli, norman simmons, Allan Harris, and Rodgers Grant, among others.

Susan’s professional experience includes numerous European tours as featured artist, several Off-Broadway musicals, a varied array of national television and radio jingles, touring as keyboardist and vocalist with Tom Tom Club (Talking Heads sans David Byrne), and appearing on ‘Late Night with David Letterman.’  In addition to session work for the MCA and Atlantic record labels - as well as singing background vocals for Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Wailers, Richie Havens, and Garland Jeffries (and more) - Susan is currently featured on four European and three japanese CDs, as well as her own releases entitled Watercolor Dream (first picked up by Mike Longo’s Consolidated Artists label), Live In Detroit  With The Cliff Monear Trio, Love From Detroit with the cliff Monear Trio, and her newest recording Touch and Go.  Susan was also chosen as a featured artist on the Japanese CD compilation Jazz Bar and is currently a signed recording artist on the eponymous DISK UNION label. A re-release of Watercolor Dream is currently available in Japan on the same label, along with Live In Detroit, plus love from detroit was just released worldwide this past april. Her newest recording project entitled Touch and Go (a unique musical departure from her previous offerings) will be available July 31st, 2020. That was exciting, wasn't it?  Now, if we were between sets sitting at the bar, this is more like what I might actually want you to know...

“Words...to sing them is a different thing than it is to speak them. And most especially to write them.  At times they can tumble out, yet other times barely seem to come at all.  But to feel, conceptualize, write and then sing them is a whole other thing for me. At age four I started writing poetry, a year later my first poem was published, and by 15 I had won a national award. Two years later I found myself enrolled in the graduate poetry department at Columbia University, pretty much on my own with not much more than some old records and a tome of teen-angst journals.  But when a professor told me no one (I assumed he was referring to me) should write anything until at least the age of 25, I put the pencil down. A couple of years later I checked out an ad to answer phones at Electric Lady, a well-known recording studio in Greenwich Village, built by Jimi Hendrix.  At the time I thought nothing of it, other than a way to make a few bucks. Three months in I had been anointed with the title of Studio Manager.  I spent close to a decade running top-flight recording studios all over NYC, but not on the ‘right side of the glass.’  On the surface, my work seemed exciting, if not fulfilling - meeting rock stars, going to concerts, sitting in on recording sessions - but instead I always somehow felt as though I was living someone else’s life.  As my 30th birthday approached, I came upon a book about visualizing what one dreams for oneself. Three weeks later I could barely believe it.  There I was - exactly where I had imagined / visualized myself to be (on the road with a famous rock band).

Since I had not yet met the musical love of my life (jazz), my first affair was to sing and play keyboards with the pop-rock band Tom Tom Club. Fast-forward one year, and I was back in New York City, broke, and with no prospects.  I knew I loved this new life; I just hadn’t found my niche.  Knowing virtually nothing about jazz -other than I thought I'd read somewhere it attracted mostly intelligent, progressive and dedicated musicians - this vague idea already had a magnetic pull. I decided to put up an ad at NYU ISO a jazz pianist who would be willing to help a novice like me learn songs but without so much as a dollar (let alone gig) in return.  To my surprise, dozens of pianists showed up at my door! As the fates would allow, one of them was a life-long protege of pianist Barry Harris (a fellow Detroiter), and from there it was as though I was gliding home, only this time to a home I’d never been. I quickly met and befriended myriad creative, talented, and generous musicians who spent countless hours helping me to understand music from the inside out, encouraging me to learn everything I could, so that as a singer - even if I was in no way the most accomplished or experienced - I would at least know how to be professional, thus allowing me to acquire the skills I would need if I were to ever be lucky enough to make a living doing what I truly loved.  To this day, each and every time someone pays me to sing, I feel truly blessed. 

My favorite poet Pablo Neruda once wrote, 'One must achieve a balance between solitude and solidarity, between feeling and action, between the intimacy of one's self, the intimacy of humanity, and the revelation of nature.'  This has always meant so very much to me; I even ended up naming my music publishing company Soliterra Music.  'Soliterra' is not a word in the dictionary; in fact it is a word I dreamt after reading Neruda's quote.  It reminds me of being alone and writing a song, then hearing it come to life as it's played for the first time.  It is truly one of THE most entirely thrilling feelings in my musical lexicon. What’s meaningful to me about being a singer/composer is so multi-faceted that words (prose, anyway) don’t often suffice.  I think that’s why I write - to communicate through the universal language of music, to expand and go deeper, and to lean into the unknown.  I feel incredibly fortunate to have been and continue to be in the company of so many gifted musicians, to earn a living doing so, and to have learned this much already. But even more importantly, to know that there is more to learn, always more. It is a lifelong endeavor, and for that I feel infinitely grateful.” ~ Susan Tobocman, February 2017 https://www.susantobocman.com/bio.html

Watercolor Dream

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