Flashes of Panic

I accepted a last-minute invitation to see Sonya Kitchell at the Iron Horse last night. (I wouldn’t mind going back to see Erin McKeown tonight, but I’ve got deadlines.) Kitchell is a local who has had a lot of buzz in the area newspapers lately. She’s been singing around the area for two or three years now, starting out singing with jazz bands and eventually headlining her own band (last night’s performance was, officially, “The Sonya Kitchell Band.”) I was curious after the big writeup in last week’s paper.

The band is largely a jazz band (just a four-piece, last night: piano, guitar, bass, drums) and they showed that, particularly when they let the pianist, Miro Sprague, improvise for a bit on his own. They were really tight, and having a good time; it would have been a worthwhile show just to watch them play. They started out sounding like a Steely Dan session crew, but progressed back to something more like a small jazz ensemble with a heavy blues preference.

Kitchell’s website quotes comparisons to Norah Jones and Natalie Merchant. I can see the Merchant comparison, except that Kitchell doesn’t seem as brittle as Merchant does. She’s still more comfortable singing than talking to the crowd, but she’s aware of that and working on it.

The thing that she would rather not talk about is her age. Kitchell isn’t old enough to drive, and Sprague (I think the only member of her original band who played last night) isn’t much older. A few years ago I remember seeing signs around Northampton for “The Sonya Kitchell Band Goes to College” (Footnote: “Except Sonya.”) I can’t say I blame her; it’s hard to get a fair review when the theme is, “Pretty good for a fifteen-year-old.”

There are two songs playing on her website; you tell me if they sound like a fifteen-year-old. Seems more like we need to wonder if we really know what we’re supposed to sound like at that age.

Now Playing: The Million You Never Made from Not A Pretty Girl by Ani DiFranco