Steve Tyrell 'I’ll Take Romance' perfect pick for Valentine's Day evening

By April MacIntyre Feb 9, 2012, 23:39 GMT

Legendary jazz balladeer Steve Tyrell, described by his peers as the world’s true “romance crooner,” has released his new collection, I’ll Take Romance on February 7th, 2012.

In time for Valentine's Day, smoky, resonant romantic singer Steve Tyrell has created the perfect soundtrack to a memorable night of love.

Legendary jazz balladeer Steve Tyrell, described by his peers as the world’s true “romance crooner,” has released his new collection, I’ll Take Romance on February 7th, 2012.  

This luxurious recording features 12 tracks with Tyrell, backed by his band along with a String Orchestra. 

The release of I’ll Take Romance will be accompanied by tour dates across the country, including his annual seven week run at New York City’s legendary Café Carlyle, where he replaced Manhattan icon Bobby Short seven years ago.

Inspired by Chelsea Clinton’s choice of his version of “The Way You Look Tonight” for the first dance at her wedding as told to Tyrell at last year’s Café Carlyle engagement by father and former President Bill Clinton, Tyrell then decided that his next studio recording should be an album consisting purely of romantic standards- an homage to The Great American Songbook with tracks culled from several genres expressing the theme of romance.

The Texas-born Tyrell had already earned massive success across the music industry for his A&R, production and film work when, in 1991, he was encouraged by director Charles Shyer to record “The Way You Look Tonight” for a climactic wedding reception scene in Father of the Bride.

But it was Shyer’s partner, producer/director Nancy Meyers, who hit upon the idea of Tyrell not only singing the song on the soundtrack but also appearing in the film, crooning the romantic tune to the newlyweds as they share their first dance. “That was the first time I’d ever sung a standard,” says Tyrell, “and after the film came out, Disney got hundreds of letters asking where they could buy more of my recordings. Then, when I sang “Give Me the Simple Life” and “On the Sunny Side of the Street” for Father of the Bride II, I got the same response.”

Steve Martin, encouraged Tyrell to record an entire album of standards. Though Tyrell doubted that such an album would, at the height of the grunge movement, have much of an audience, he self-produced A New Standard, released by Atlantic in 1999. An instant bestseller, it established Tyrell, at age 54, as a major jazz voice, paving the way for a stellar nightclub, concert and recording career that has included seven additional albums on Billboard's Top 5 Jazz chart.

The tracks include gems as “That’s All,” “Taking a Chance On Love,” “All of You” and the title track, Tyrell also covers a host of R&B classics, including the Etta James hits “At Last” and “Trust In Me;” Sam Cooke’s “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons;” and Little Willie John’s “Talk to Me.”

But I’ll Take Romance, which features Tyrell’s original recording of “The Way You Look Tonight” as a bonus track, also harkens back to his earliest days in music. In addition to such Great American Songbook gems as “That’s All,” “Taking a Chance On Love,” “All of You” and the title track, Tyrell covers a host of R&B classics, including the Etta James hits “At Last” and Trust In Me,” Sam Cooke’s “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons,” and Little Willie John’s “Talk to Me.”

“I grew up in the 5th ward of Houston,” Tyrell recalls, “and was the only white boy for miles. So, I was raised on a mixture of my Italian parents’ music – standards sung by Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Dean Martin – and music from the neighborhood, where I heard Louis Jordan, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong. I started singing at 15 in a white R&B band and was also the singer for an all-black band, and both bands only did R&B songs. We didn’t cover Bobby Vee or The Beach Boys, but Otis Redding, Ben E. King, Sam Cooke, Jerry Butler and Ray Charles, who to this day remains my favorite singer of all time. This album has that flavor in it, and is closer to my roots that any of my other ones.”

I’ll Take Romance features nearly 20 different accompanists, including four pianists, four bassists and four drummers in various combinations. The reason, he says, is that, “I’m always recording. When I get an idea, I record it. It’s like a painter who has a studio with all sorts of canvases in various stage of development. Most of these tracks were newly recorded for the album, but others I’ve been working on for years. That’s why you’ll hear the late, great drummer Johnny Guerin [who died in 2004] playing on ‘That’s All’ and ‘You Turn Me Around.’”

Additionally, I’ll Take Romance showcases several stellar soloists, including five time Grammy-winning trumpeter Randy Brecker, saxophonist David Mann (who also plays flute on “Talk to Me” and “All of You”), legendary Sinatra and Nat King Cole saxophonist Plas Johnson and harmonicist Will Galison. Another special guest is vocalist Judith Hill, Tyrell’s duet partner on the album’s title track.

Tyrell first encountered Hill when he was producing Rod Stewart’s Soulbook (released in 2009).

“She was singing backup on the Stewart album,” he says, “and I fell in love with her voice, so I asked her to sing on my record. At the time, she was about to go out on tour with Michael Jackson. She was going to sing all the duets with him – you can see her in the film This Is It. He was going to introduce her to the world. She’s an incredibly talented, beautiful girl, and is going to be a big star.”

As for his recently forged relationship with Concord, Tyrell says he is “thrilled” about joining the label.

“I’ve been a big fan of John Burk [Concord’s Executive VP and head of A&R] for a long time. As I stated earlier, Ray Charles is my favorite artist of all time, and John produced Ray’s final studio album [2004’s Genius Loves Company] that won [a Grammy for] Album of the Year. John was the one who signed me, and he’s helped a tremendous amount with this album. He is somebody I really admire.”

www.stevetyrell.com