I'll Be Easy to Find
When veteran singer-pianist Teri Thornton delivered her stunning performance to win the 1998Thelonious MonkInternational Jazz Vocals Competition at the Smithsonian Institute, she was regaled with a thunderous ovation.I'll Be Easy to Find, Thornton's Verve debut, clearly shows why. With her mature voice and evocative vibrato, Thornton gets across big time because she uses her instrument wonderfully and tells a story with each song. It's a story of a life fully lived, a roller coaster tale of career hits and misses--recording for Columbia and appearing withDuke Ellingtonin the '60s, the recent Monk win and Verve contract--as well as personal dramas such as motherhood, divorce by age 19, and a bout with cancer. You can hear all of this in "Somewhere in the Night" and "I'll Be Seeing You," both songs combinations of loss and hope sung with passionate, informed grace. Likewise, the open-hearted title track is offered with vulnerability and spine. "Feels Good" is the gleeful, bluesy shout of a survivor who has seen it all; its cousins are the funky "Salty Mama," recorded with first-rate Thornton piano, and the upbeat "I Believe in You." Elsewhere, she swings the "Lord's Prayer" by employing a lilting Latin groove and uses an insinuating 12/8 beat to give "Nature Boy" a freewheeling feel. Performances by pianist Ray Chews, saxophonist-flutist Jerome Richardson, tuba player and baritone-saxophonist Howard Johnson and bassist Lonnie Plaxico, among others, round out the appealing proceedings.--Zan Stewart