Holding himself to a standard

Jennifer K Mahal

Steve Tyrell is a purist when it comes to singing standards.

Though the singer-songwriter-producer has written a chart-topping

song -- “How Do You Talk to an Angel?” -- he has no intention of

mixing originals with the works of Ira and George Gershwin, Hoagy

Carmichael or Cole Porter.

“I feel like you’re either doing the standards or you’re not. You

don’t mix them together,” said Tyrell, who will perform today and

Saturday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. “It’s like

going into a house that has great antique furniture and having three

reproductions in the middle of the room.”

It works for him. Last week, Tyrell got the news that his new

holiday album, “This Time of the Year,” debuted at No. 5 on the

Billboard Traditional Jazz chart. “Standard Time,” his second CD,

featuring songs like “Stardust” and “Why Was I Born,” is No. 8.

His first album, “A New Standard,” had to be moved off the

Traditional Jazz chart because it’s been out for more than two years.

But it’s at No. 10 on the Catalog chart, which includes all the

traditional jazz albums since time immemorial.

The Texas-born singer grew up in Houston listening to rhythm and

blues. As a young man, he had a band and a record deal and put out

tunes that were “hits in the South, but not nationally.” Life took a

strange turn away from the microphone when Tyrell got a job with a

record distributor and started to produce local artists.

At 19, he moved to New York to work for Scepter Records. There he

produced sessions with Dionne Warwick, the Shirelles and Chuck

Jackson. He also worked with songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal

David, Gerry Goffin and Carole King and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

His work with fellow Houston resident B.J. Thomas lead to Thomas

getting national recognition as the voice behind “Raindrops Keep

Falling on My Head,” the Bacharach-David song from “Butch Cassidy and

the Sundance Kid” that won the 1969 Academy Award.

It was the 1991 Steve Martin remake of “Father of the Bride” that

led Tyrell to where he is now. Hired to coordinate the music for the

soundtrack, Tyrell sang a version of “The Way You Look Tonight.”

Hundreds of letters were sent to the studio after the film was

released.

“People were telling me, ‘You should have an album of standards,’”

said the gravelly-voiced singer.

It took the second “Father of the Bride” film, for which he sang

“The Simple Life” and “Sunny Side of the Street,” to get him thinking

seriously about a solo album. Rosemary Clooney called to say she had

seen the film and asked if he would he sing with her at the Dorothy

Chandler Pavilion. He ran into Louis Bellson, one of the best

drummers of the Big Band Era, in a park.

The latter meeting made him realize how many of the older

musicians were still alive and able to play. It gave him the

inspiration to make “A New Standard.”

“If I could make an album to pay tribute and get all of these old

guys to be back, it didn’t matter if it was commercial,” Tyrell said.

His albums feature the work of trumpeter Harry “Sweets” Edison,

harmonica player “Toots” Thielemans, trumpeter Clark “Mumbles” Terry

and saxophonist Plas Johnson, all men in their 80s.

You can see the joy Tyrell takes in performing with these jazz

luminaries in the album liner for “Standard Time,” which contains a

photo of the singer looking at a wall of photos of him working with

members of the band.

“It has been the biggest thrill of my life,” Tyrell wrote in the

liner notes about working with the legends.

“This has been kind of a turn in my life that took me on it,”

Tyrell said. “I didn’t go, ‘Well, you know, I think I’m gonna be an

artist now.’ ....I want to live out the rest of my days making

music.”