Tierney Sutton's band plays Tilles with Jonathan Schwartz

The Tierney Sutton Band, joined by radio host and American songbook guru Jonathan Schwartz, presents a rare collaboration in a pair of Cabaret at "Club T" concerts Saturday night at Tilles Center. Schwartz is the longtime host of WNYC-FM's "Saturday Show" and "Sunday Show," and more recently of "High Standards" on Sirius XM's Siriusly Sinatra satellite channel. We spoke to Sutton, whose band is twice Grammy nominated for best jazz vocal album, and to Schwartz, the son of celebrated composer Arthur Schwartz.

Q&A with Tierney Sutton

You and your band make all your musical decisions together. So how does that work, with so many musicians in the room?

Sometimes we arrive at a consensus easily. Sometimes it takes a while. One of us will bring in an idea, and we add things as we go along. By the time we're on stage or in the studio, we're fully committed. We spend a lot of time listening to each other, both musically and when we speak. In the end, everybody has to say yes for us to go forward. We've been doing it this way for 17 years. So I guess it works.

Your background in the Great American Songbook and Jonathan Schwartz's seem to mesh. How did this collaboration come about?

He's been a real supporter of our band for many years. He'll be personally involved in the process of coming up with a set list for the show. It's a natural process because he's enjoyed being backstage with us over the years. Onstage, he'll introduce us and talk about the history of some of the songs. He has such an encyclopedic knowledge.

You've recorded some of his father's songs - notably the title track of your "Dancing in the Dark" CD. So I imagine you'll be doing at least one Arthur Schwartz song, no?

We've recorded several over the years - "Alone Together," "You and the Night and the Music." Jonathan will help us pick a song of his father's, no doubt.

I'm sure we'll hear something from your latest CD, "Desire," on which you did a Peggy Lee classic. Were you at all intimidated covering "Fever" - a song she practically owned?

It was a much higher bar for me to clear with "Fever" for that very reason. It's so iconically associated with Peggy Lee. You never want to do a xeroxed version. Usually I do something very avant-garde when we cover such a famous song. But this was not as out there as some others. I think it gives people a song they can really relate to

Q&A with Jonathan Schwartz

What keeps the American songbook exciting for you?

It's because it's the greatest possible music imaginable. It's crafted in lyrics and in music by musicians of the highest order and lyricists on a similar level. The songs speak of intimacy of all different kinds, and there are haunting melodies.

Will the music keep finding audiences?

The music - and this is an important point - is related for the most part to stories of the theater and the movies. . . . Take, for example, "South Pacific" - all of those songs, "Some Enchanted Evening" and all the others, were written for character. As a result, you can't go to the theater and hear the songs without experiencing the story that accompanies them and that they accompany. You can go to jazz clubs and cabarets and hear the best people that there are - Tierney's one of them, with a jazz inflection, as well as John Pizzarelli and his wife, Jessica Molaskey, and many others all over the world are giving us their impressions of these songs. These are men and women in the 20s, 30s and 40s. Michael Bublé and Diana Krall are perhaps the most successful at the moment. But there will be others.

Is there a song you wish Frank Sinatra had recorded?

"By Myself" by my father. And many others . . . "Tenderly" would be one. "I Got Rhythm" by the Gershwins would be another. "Long Ago (and Far Away)" by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin. "Darn That Dream," which is a wonderful song by Jimmy Van Heusen. And I would give you "Love Is Sweeping the Country" by the Gershwins. And . . . "Out of This World," and "It Was Written in the Stars" by Harold Arlen.

Is there a pop or rock artist you'd like to hear sing the standards?

No, with the possible exception of James Taylor. He's done a handful of them and very well.

What will be the format of the Tilles show?

I will talk about what jazz is, and we'll talk about their band. They play primarily standard songs. Tierney didn't hear a note of jazz until she was 19, and she's one of the top jazz singers that we have in the country.