Tuck & Patti

continued

It’s remarkable that they can sustain that intensity; Tuck and Patti got together in 1978, supposedly knowing within seconds of meeting that they had found a long-lasting musical partnership, one that soon turned into matrimony as well. To those of us ordinary mortals whose long-term relationships require a delicate balance between togetherness and distance, these full-time pairings seem nothing short of miraculous, but after thirty years the music of Tuck & Patti continues to deepen into a profound fusion of souls.

Tuck & Patti can cause trouble for the people who put music into categories, but jazz is the best word for what they do, even though the combination of vocalist and guitarist is a rare one in the genre. Tuck is capable of snap decisions and intricate details devised on the spur of the moment, and he can shift easily from steady rhythmic accompaniment in a contemporary pop song to a really dizzying variety of attack in music by the likes of Gershwin. Patti has an alto voice something like that of Detroit’s Anita Baker, but quieter: it can either sail into a light upper register or broaden out into a rounded tone at important moments. The music on recordings never goes above conversation level, putting Tuck and Patti among the few American performers who occupy the lowest 10 percent of the dynamic spectrum.