Miss Tess croons for Pittsburgh

Miss Tess, a Boston-based singer who derives her sound from jazz, country and folk, will come… Miss Tess, a Boston-based singer who derives her sound from jazz, country and folk, will come to Pittsburgh this weekend, touring for the release of her fifth album, Darling, oh Darling.

She formed Miss Tess & The Bon Ton Parade five years ago when she moved from Baltimore to Boston. Miss Tess is still an independent artist with no affiliated record label.

“You have to do everything yourself. It’s a lot of work. It’s also cool to be in control of your own music,” she said. “It’s a sort of freedom.”

The jazz elements of Darling, oh Darling show in subtle ways, with the influence of “old jazz Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan” coming from Miss Tess’s voice. Idols of the past find a place in her music.

“I grew up listening to [jazz singers] with my parents. Then there’s Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, Tom Waits. I listened to punk bands in high school and old country. My influences are all over the map, but I think most of them are not alive,” Miss Tess said.

Her lyrical themes remain relevant, just as those of her influences, choosing subjects close to the heart.

“We’re a good date band. People cuddle up a little bit,” Miss Tess said.

Romance features heavily in this album, with songs of love lost and won expressed with the emotion only a jazz singer can evoke with just the timbre of her voice but also with her personal lyrics.

“We play a lot for singer-songwriter crowd because I write all the songs,” Miss Tess said.

The lyrics should ring true to anyone in love or out of it, but for Miss Tess, they’ve stemmed from events in her own romantic past, she said.

“They’re inspired by real relationships, for the most part. The title track, ‘Darling, oh Darling’ was a song I wrote about someone, for someone. It was very specific to our situation,” she said.

The music style sounds different with each track, sometimes like jazz, other times like folk or country. Pigeonholing Miss Tess & The Bon Ton Parade becomes an almost impossible task. Songs like “Love” with its guitar and the lesser used clarinet or “Awake” with banjo and saxophone just don’t fit as anything but “Miss Tess.”

“We’ve played at all jazz clubs, dive bars and in the South — where they had never heard of live clarinet,” she said.

Miss Tess and her quartet will play dance music at Brillobox this Saturday, she said. She says her music is easy for most people to relate to.

“Our jazz is pretty accessible. Even if they’re not jazz fans, I think people appreciate it and get it,” she said.