American jazz singer Tierney Sutton was interested in music from an early age, playing the piano and singing as a child, but did not experience jazz music until she went to college. She initially studied Russian language and literature at Wesleyan University and then went on to study jazz at postgraduate level at Berklee College of Music, Boston.
In 1994, she moved to Los Angeles and set up the Tierney Sutton Band with pianist Christian Jacob, bassist Trey Henry and drummer Ray Brinkler. Her first solo album 'Introducing Tierney Sutton' was released in 1998. With a pure voice and a lyrical approach to both jazz standards and modern jazz, she went on to release four more albums on the Teldec label between 2000 and 2004, beginning with 'Unsung Heroes' in 2000. Her first tribute album 'Blue in Green', featuring music by Bill Evans, followed in 2001, and 'Something Cool' in 2002. Her second tribute, 'Dancing in the Dark', this time to the music of Frank Sinatra, was released in 2004.
Tierney released three more albums on the Teldec label, 'I'm With the Band' (2005), 'On the Other Side' (2007) and 'Desire' (2009). She then moved to BFM Jazz to release 'American Road' in 2011. Another tribute album followed in 2013 with 'After Blue', a tribute to Joni Mitchell, featuring the Turtle Island String Quartet, singer Al Jarreau, keyboard player Larry Goldings and drummer Peter Erskine. She released 'The Paris Sessions' with guitarist Serge Merlaud and bassist Kevin Axt in 2014 and a tribute to the music of Sting in 2016, 'The Sting Variations'. Also in 2016 she performed on the soundtrack for the film 'Sully', the music of which was written by Christian Jacob, the pianist in the Tierney Sutton Band. Her next album release was 'Screenplay' in 2019.
In addition to performing, Sutton taught for ten years at the Thornton School of Music and was the Head of the Vocal Department at The Los Angeles College of Music.
