Photo: David Andrako

From the very first jazzy note, you can tell she loves them. Tierney Sutton’s residency at the Café Carlyle is a tribute to the songwriting couple, Marilyn and Alan Bergman is an awe-fest to their music, and to them as a couple. Sutton goes through their romance and collaboration: to this day, after 61 years of marriage, they mostly occupy the same room, and when they call, they both call, speaking on extensions, inviting her to dinner or to test out a new tune. And as Sutton goes through this history, through their work with composers Michel Legrand, Dave Grusin, Marvin Hamlisch, John Williams and more, you realize, they’ve written the lyrics to songs you know and love, such as “Nice and Easy,” for Frank Sinatra, his first album’s title track, and “The Way We Were,” with Marvin Hamlisch, best known for the movie with Barbra Streisand.

But then, Tierney Sutton mixes it up, selecting rarely heard songs. With her sidemen Mitch Forman on piano and Trey Henry on bass, she scats on “It Might Be You” from Tootsie, and raps on “Genesis Revisited,” from a sitcom, “All That Glitters.” One of my favorite moments of this night were her stories about the standard, “That Face:” Alan wrote it to propose to Marilyn and had Fred Astaire sing it. The Bergmans wrote the words to “A Love Like Ours,” for each other. Sutton’s lovely take of “The Windmills of Your Mind” is just a taste of this special treat this week at the Carlyle.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura