Thornewood

David Thorne Scott

I’ve been an East Coast jazz guy for all of my adult life, but for me the music washes through the prairie grass of my home state of Nebraska. That duality has always made me a bit different. I’m usually either the hippest or the squarest person in the room.

This album is my attempt to reconcile these two sides of my soul. I wanted to see if
I’ve been an East Coast jazz guy for all of my adult life, but for me the music washes through the prairie grass of my home state of Nebraska. That duality has always made me a bit different. I’m usually either the hippest or the squarest person in the room.

This album is my attempt to reconcile these two sides of my soul. I wanted to see if blazing bebop trumpet and weeping steel guitar could play nicely together.

There are songs from the Great American Songbook, plainspoken Texas songwriters and slick film composers. My original songs are inspired musically by hard bop, lyrically by the Great Plains.

The fury that accompanies red-state-vs.-blue-state thinking in this country is not sustainable. We need to recognize the humanity in each other. I want jazz fans to love the mournful hollow tone of wide-open spaces. And I want fans of Americana music to love the electric crackle of city nights.

• I'm a child of the 80’s: MTV, Max Headroom, Atari. We Generation Xers express ourselves by wandering down to the ocean of irony, grabbing a surfboard of earnestness, and trying to catch a wave.
• I’m from Nebraska.
• I love that gritty early 1970's NYC sound (before it became Disney New York): early Billy Joel, Paul Simon. Paul Shaffer and G.E. Smith too.
• I love Carmen McRae more than anything, but I still get a thrill from that 80’s synthesizer gauze with the gated reverb backbeat.
• My generation of jazz musicians are sometimes thought of as quite conservative, but many of us treat the music of our day as source material for jazz explorations.
• Inspirations for finding the border of jazz and the "western" component of "Americana" music include Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny "Beyond the Missouri Sky", the Brian Blade Fellowship, Daniel Lanois, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Jerry Douglas.
• Some of my original songs on this record are about sandhill cranes and cornfields. Others are about creepy nighthawk types.
• Allison Tanenhaus’ cover art is reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen's “Nebraska” album but with more glitchy ecstatic color to go with the dust.
• Thornewood is a nickname one of my friends from Iowa tagged me with. Sounds vaguely snooty yet down-home.
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Previous Projects

Stronger Every Year

David Thorne Scott

"Stronger Every Year" is an ode to a special person who only seems to get better as they get older. The song travels through years spent together, beginning with a new admiration, through tough times and finally, taking the long view and looking back on a life well lived. "I think everyone has someone in their life who seems to get stronger every

"Stronger Every Year" is an ode to a special person who only seems to get better as they get older. The song travels through years spent together, beginning with a new admiration, through tough times and finally, taking the long view and looking back on a life well lived. "I think everyone has someone in their life who seems to get stronger every year," Scott says.

David Thorne Scott is a singer/songwriter and musical omnivore who uses the freedom of jazz to explore the emotional truths of standards, rock and folk.

David Thorne Scott - vocals, keyboards, bass Anthony Resta - drums, guitar, textures mixed by Karyadi Sutedja

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If I Was In Jail

David Thorne Scott

"If I Was In Jail" explores the loneliness at the heart of modern life. It was written in a hotel room on the road, far from friends and family, where the fantasy of apartness met the reality. "As a teenager I loved 'I Am A Rock' by Paul Simon because even though on the surface the song is about independence, the dark power of loneliness lurks

"If I Was In Jail" explores the loneliness at the heart of modern life. It was written in a hotel room on the road, far from friends and family, where the fantasy of apartness met the reality. "As a teenager I loved 'I Am A Rock' by Paul Simon because even though on the surface the song is about independence, the dark power of loneliness lurks directly underneath," Scott said. This flavor of independence about to be devoured by loneliness, suffuses "If I Was In Jail".

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Hopeful Romantic

David Thorne Scott

A sexy jazz/pop confection of smoky jazz vocals, bold rock piano anthems, effervescent pop and dark hip-hop musings.

Armed with roses and a piano, singer/songwriter and pianist David Thorne Scott has designs on your heart with his new album Hopeful Romantic. Deep musicianship and creativity born of years of jazz explorations combine with youthful

A sexy jazz/pop confection of smoky jazz vocals, bold rock piano anthems, effervescent pop and dark hip-hop musings.

Armed with roses and a piano, singer/songwriter and pianist David Thorne Scott has designs on your heart with his new album Hopeful Romantic. Deep musicianship and creativity born of years of jazz explorations combine with youthful iconoclasm and a rock aesthetic to give music-lovers a delightful surprise. Playfully sweet but wise lyrics and angular melodies are hallmarks, as is the intimate yet strong voice that declaims them.

“I love my audience. Whenever I have stretched out in my live jazz shows, whether it’s a country song or an 80s pop ballad or an experiment with electronics and chanting, they have come right along to listen,” says Scott. “When I heard the Jamie Cullum record The Pursuit, I had the epiphany that I could bring the same eclecticism to a recording.”

Hopeful Romantic – the Boston-based singer’s first crossover album – consists of smoky jazz, powerful rock anthems, bouncy pop and moody hip-hop musings. These disparate rays are focused through a voice that provides a singular emotional resonance. Regardless of style, “I still sound like myself,” Scott says.

The bookend tracks are “The Sign On My Door” and “Crossing the Line,” originals that sound like jazz standards from the golden age, but with sly lyrics born of a 21st century mind: “Let the coffee cool down while we’re foolin’ around, we can go to Starbucks afterwards…” The infectious “Who Doesn’t Want To Fall In Love” and the ebullient “I Should Take It From Here” are flirtations that practically scream to be sung along with. “More Than One Way” mesmerizes with a mélange of acoustic, electric and electronic sound anchored by aggressive percussion to tell a story of freedom from the chains of obsessive love. Perhaps the most distinctive track is “Wisdom From Truth,” with its R&B-infused form and hook, dark harmonies and lyrics, and bebop melody. “I was trying to channel Eddie Jefferson by way of Robert Glasper,” says Scott with a laugh.

Hopeful Romantic is a stylistic departure from Scott’s previous recordings, the late-night jazz of Shade and the kinetic interplay of the vocal/piano duet record Dyad. As a pure jazz singer, Cadence Magazine says “he phrases like a saxophone player and is as slippery and hip as the young Mel Tormé.”

The Jazz Education Journal chose Shade as a Top 5 Vocal CD of the year. It was the only self-produced album in a lineup of luminaries Andy Bey, Kitty Margolis, Mark Murphy and Judi Silvano. “He is a welcome change from the more predictable vocal jazzers in the competitive vocal milieu. Scott's voice is refreshingly different; he explores, discovers, and shares resulting creative approaches to melodies and doesn't fail to swing,” said Herb Wong’s review. “I haven’t been this moved by a performance of ‘For All We Know’ since Carmen McRae.”

“Crystal clear diction, squeaky clean tone and the ability to scat like a true horn player are among the qualities that set this vocalist apart from hundreds of thousands of jazz singers of either sex. … [Scott is] an indisputable jazz artist that belongs in the spotlight,” says Ori Dagan of ejazznews.com.

Since the recording of Dyad, Scott has been experimenting with widely varying styles of music. He founded the Hard Bop Sextet featuring Greg Hopkins to explore funky jazz inspired by 1960s Blue Note recordings. As a member of the vocal quartet Syncopation, which the Boston Globe calls “a 21st-century Manhattan Transfer or Lambert, Hendricks and Ross,” Scott sang and played trumpet with the Boston Pops and the New England Wind Symphony. He appeared as a guest soloist on Mina Cho’s Originality album, which received a four-star review in DownBeat Magazine. Not content to sing only contemporary music, Scott has performed with the Blue Heron Renaissance choir, which the New Yorker praises for “fresh ideas” and “expressive intensity.”

“Collaboration is the name of the game for me right now,” Scott says. “It gets me out of myself. There are so many genius musicians in Boston, there’s not enough time to work with them all.”

The grand collaboration of Hopeful Romantic is with Gold- and Platinum-award winning producer/musician Anthony J. Resta, whose resumé includes work with veteran bands like Duran Duran, Collective Soul and Shawn Mullins as well as up-and-comers The Cinnamon Fuzz and The Elevator Drops. While Scott recorded all the lead vocals and multitracked the background vocals in his bedroom (pictured on the CD jacket), his piano and Rhodes parts were tracked in the liquid centre of the rhythm factory, the heart of the sci-fi mambo lab: Resta’s recording studio Bopnique Musique. Tucked away beneath an old mill complex north of Boston, Resta’s secret lair hides like a musical comic-book hero’s Beat Cave, with dozens of guitars, vintage keyboards, electronic doohickeys and musical toys that he and engineer Karyadi Sutedja employ to create grooves and atmospheres.

It might seem an unlikely pairing, the jazzer and the mad scientist, but Resta’s iconoclastic rock, hip-hop and experimental electronica and percussion creates a surprisingly cohesive sonic landscape suited perfectly for Scott’s arranging acumen and songcraft. Scott reflects, “Even though this was my first time working in a pop production style, we worked hard to achieve the flow of a jazz record.”

What he’s learned from recording this album, Scott says, is that “there is no reason not to sing a wide range of music that you love and can perform with enthusiasm and energy. My audience wants to enjoy music without worrying about stylistic purity, or whether the live show sounds the same as the record. These people love the physical sensation of good sound waves, they love the mental and emotional stimulation of lyrics that bring the listener in to the process, they love watching the high-wire act of musicians throwing it into that fifth gear where nobody knows where it’s going to land but you trust the pilot to take you down gracefully. They just love the ride.”

“Hopeful Romantic”: Track by track

The album starts off with a smoky jazz tune called “The Sign On My Door.” John Stein plays some whispery jazz guitar while the drums are brushed and horns blow cool. The vocals are whispery, too, with an invitation to “come play” to a certain intimate somebody. Following that is a rock piano anthem, “Who Doesn’t Want To Fall In Love?” The energy gets cranked up and the instruments crackle. Greg Loughman lays down a deep groove on his acoustic bass and the background vocals build up to a choir in high gear. The lead vocal is playful wailing, all the way up to that high E-flat at the end. The funky “Too Late” follows, with the keyboard sound switching to a gritty cool 1970s Fender Rhodes and the guitar working the wah pedal. The melody goes from a whisper to a shout of pain and loss, but the story twists around while the band jams out like Medeski, Martin and Wood. The rich texture of voices, horns, guitars and keyboards on “More Than One Way” holds you like a velvety comforter, but the Steve Gadd-like energy of Larry Finn on drums makes this song anything but sleepy. The repeating horn riff at the end has been linked to altered states of consiousness, so perhaps best not to listen too closely while driving. “I Should Take It From Here” bounces the blues away with a courtship story that demonstrates that tenacity in love sometimes pays off. The stop-and-start shuffle groove gives way to a flowing chorus that will have you singing along, but it’s the gorgeous orchestral breakdown that melts her heart and closes the deal. “Wisdom From Truth” brings a hip-hop sensibility together with bebop melodic lines, making you wonder how a collaboration between Eddie Jefferson and Robert Glasper might sound. Producer Anthony J. Resta’s fingerprints are all over this one, from laying down the tight groove on the drumkit to providing all the ear candy from synths, guitars, and even – yes – cowbell. The album ends with a sigh on “Crossing the Line.” Beginning with a jazz rubato chorus of just piano and vocals, the song proceeds to add in the rhythm section and lush strings behind a soaring, dreamy whistling solo. It’s not quite Andrew Bird, not quite Bing Crosby, but a highly satisfying expression of the yearning and disappointment of unrequited love.

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