Gentleman, released April 10, 2020, on EmArcy/Universal, offers a set of wry yet hopeful songs about love, loss and elegant masculinity.
What does it mean to be a gentleman in this day and age? Vocalist, songwriter and saxophonist Curtis Stigers found himself confronting that question from a variety of angles as he was preparing for his latest album. On a personal level, he was watching his daughter leave home for college, beginning a new chapter in the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp. Back at home, Stigers was reinventing his own life with a new romance and marriage.
On a grander scale, Stigers found himself, like so many others, enraged by the lack of role models in public life. From the divisive and openly corrupt dealings of politicians to the exposed underbelly of the entertainment industry, it became increasingly difficult to find an example of manhood worth looking up to.
Stigers’ new album, Gentleman, thus offers a wry yet elegant reassessment of the modern male. Released April 10, 2020, on EmArcy/Universal, Gentleman arrives with a spring bouquet of heartfelt songs that offer a unique view of love and loss from the perspective of a hopeless romantic who’s been through the gamut of emotion and lived to tell the tale. At times sardonic, not immune to drowning his sorrows in one (or two) too many, Stigers nonetheless remains a true gentleman, even when he comes bearing more thorns than roses.
Along with his own lyrical observations, penned in collaboration with longtime partners Larry Goldings and David Poe, Stigers also commiserates and celebrates with the words of top songwriters like Nick Lowe, Tom T. Hall and John Fulbright. He finds the perfect mood for each tune with a stellar band—pianist and organist Larry Goldings (James Taylor), bassist David Piltch (k.d. lang), drummer Austin Beede (Alastair Greene Band), trumpeter John “Scrapper” Sneider (Madeleine Peyroux), percussionist Doug Yowell (Duncan Sheik) and cellist Jody Ferber (Esperanza Spalding). Stigers and Goldings share the producer credit.
“Is being a gentleman about wearing a tuxedo and using the right fork for your salad?” muses Stigers. “Or is the idea just being a decent human being and taking care of your family?”
It’s clear what side the singer comes down on. Title track “Gentleman,” co-written with Poe, breaks down the concept into its constituent parts. The song counters the swaggering, macho concept of “being a man” with a kinder, gentler alternative. “How do you have integrity and still be tough when you need to be?” Stigers offers as one of the core questions he sought to answer in the song.
As anyone who follows the singer on Twitter is well aware, Stigers is also a political junkie who has been unafraid of sharing his disgust and horror at the current state of the union and the world. “I’ve suffered through this presidency as much as anybody,” he bemoans. “So I tried to talk about how you find a graceful place as a man in this era, rather than lying and stealing, grifting from an entire nation.”
Stigers’ anger bubbles to the surface on “Here We Go Again,” a new Stigers/Poe lyric written to Goldings’ composition “Roach.” The vitriolic lyrics, taking on the business as usual of warmongers and one-percenters, puts a jaundiced new spin on the piece, originally written as a tribute to the iconic drummer Max Roach—though it’s hard to imagine that the composer of the Freedom Now Suite would disapprove.
While the music business itself is not always the most gentlemanly one, fatherhood forced him to redefine his own views 19 years ago. “Being a dad has taught me how to be a man,” Stigers says. “Before that I was just a guy who played music, and as a musician you’re able to maintain your childhood well into your adult years. When my daughter was born in 2000, suddenly everything changed. My priorities switched from someone who just looked out for himself to someone who was there to protect somebody, to take care of them and teach them what’s out there.”
Facing the prospect of life without his daughter in the house was daunting for Stigers, who found himself responding with songs that focused on abandonment. While his own situation was specific, his gift for storytelling and curation led him to pieces with a more resonant view on lost love, relatable to anyone who’s ever been left behind. The idea is most touchingly expressed on the album’s closing number, “Learning to Let You Go.”
The bachelor’s lament “Lately I’ve Let Things Slide” is Stigers’ latest reimagining of a tune by the eloquent Nick Lowe, whose classic “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding” Stigers recorded for the smash hit soundtrack to The Bodyguard in 1992.
“I’m a Nick Lowe fanatic,” Stigers says. “He’s become a friend, and his ability to write an old-fashioned song in a very literate and intelligent way just amazes me. It’s the perfect ‘I’m a mess, how could you leave me this way?’ song, but done in a very erudite, literate fashion.”
The album’s sole jazz standard, the vintage “After You’ve Gone,” offers a slightly less reserved reaction to being jilted. The song has long been a favorite of the singer’s, especially in the version recorded by his mentor, pianist Gene Harris, though this rendition came about after some unexpected twists. When the studio’s Steinway grand went out of tune at the end of a day’s recording, Goldings switched to the nearby upright piano, leading to a last call version of the classic tune. “It’s still a bit out of tune, but it wants to be out of tune,” Stigers says with a laugh. “It sounds like we went next door to a honkytonk, had a few drinks and then played some strange Dr. John/Tom Waits version. It’s not perfect, and that’s the kind of music I play.”
“As Usual” is another Goldings composition, a melancholy ballad with a wistful lyric by Nashville songwriter Bill Demain. With Sneider’s forlorn trumpet moaning in the distance, “Shame on the Rain” is a classic country lament by revered songwriter Tom T. Hall, while “She Knows” is a song Stigers discovered by the up-and-coming Oklahoma Americana artist John Fullbright. “Remember” and “Under the Snow” are solo offerings from the pen of David Poe.
“Under the Snow” is one of two songs on the album that offer glimpses of a happy ending. The tune, about green grass growing under the wintry blanket, looks to a more optimistic future. Stigers’ own current happiness in his new marriage is captured on the airy “A Lifetime Together,” a stunningly graceful duet with Goldings.
Gentleman is an album about being a good man from one who aspires to that title and seems to exemplify its finer aspects in his tasteful choices and expressive delivery, fully capturing the standard of humanity that we all should reach for and cleverly chronicling the myriad ways that we fall short on a daily basis. The result is Stigers’ most personal, resonant, and vibrant collection to date.
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