newman | Brrrrlesque Update!

The Boston Babydolls' holiday spectacular at Church on Sunday, Dec. 14 just got even more spectacular!

We must have been very, very good because the word has just come down that the delightful Miss Tess will be opening for us at 8:30 p.m. — get there early, because this show will fill up fast!

You really don't know?

Miss Tess is a young, Boston-based songwriter, whose “Modern Vintage” sound bridges eras and genres. True to the tradition, her vocals can soar or caress as she strums and picks her way through an array of styles, from ragtime, to blues; country, to swing. Tess writes songs with the folk sensibilities of a troubadour that engage roots-devotees and newcomers alike. A typical set conjures a cast of dreamers and lovers, down on their luck and charming their ways in and out of trouble, with familiar faces mingling in the crowd, courtesy of folks like Bessie Smith and Tom Waits — perpetual muses to her style.

A small career breakthrough came for Tess this past November when she won the 27th biannual Open Mic Shootout at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, GA. As the winner, she performed on the 2008 Cayamo music cruise with headliners Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett.

Tess first joined the storied Cambridge folk scene in 2005, when she formed The Bon Ton Parade, a dynamic, solo-swapping combo, comprised of sax & clarinet, upright bass, brushes on drums, and backing harmonies. The Bon Tons began playing at rootsy hotspots, Club Passim, The Lizard Lounge, and The Plough & Stars. In 2006 they clinched an indefinite Sunday night residency at Toad, a cozy live-music joint off of Mass Ave in Porter Square. In May of 2007, Tess released her first album with her Boston band, entitled Modern Vintage, a term she coined to describe her emerging style of contemporary music strongly infused with the flavors of early jazz and its relatives. Modern Vintage was recorded at Hi-N-Dry, the studio of Boston legend Mark Sandman, and was produced by Morphine drummer Billy Conway.

2007 also brought When Tomorrow Comes, an album comprised of jazz standards in the vein of Duke Ellington and Fats Waller, alongside two original compositions. Tess was accompanied on this project by a group of six notable DC-based jazz players; Robert Redd on piano, Steve Abshire on guitar, Rusty Mason on sax, John Jensen on trombone, Ralph Gordon on bass, and Steve Larrance on drums. The album’s release party was held at the historic Blues Alley in Washington D.C. where Tess sang to a sold out Tuesday night crowd.

Much of Tess’s style stems from her musical upbringing. In her Baltimore youth, Miss Tess was lullabied by the sounds of her father’s Big Band rehearsing in a basement below her bedroom. Her mother played upright bass, and large jam parties were a familiar household sound. Tess studied classical piano as a child, and in her teens, began banging out her first few chords on an acoustic guitar. Once in a while, her parents would coax her to croon out a standard like Crazy, or Dream A Little Dream of Me. By her early 20’s, she had fallen in love with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn and her guitar playing took a turn for the better under the tutelage of local jazzer Steve Abshire.