Jones and Person--Still in Harmony After All These Years

While some people say the classic American pop standard is passe, singer Etta Jones and tenor saxophonist Houston Person feel those tunes just keep getting better and better. They should know: The pair have based their 20-plus-year musical relationship around the great songs, and the decision has paid them handsomely.

“I love standards. I could sing them forever,” Jones, 59, said in a telephone interview from New York.

“Songs like ‘You Are Too Beautiful,’ ‘Darn That Dream’ and ‘The Talk of the Town’ just keeping living on,” added the saxophonist, 53, in a separate interview from his home in Newark, N.J. “They all have good lyrics and strong melodies, and they’re challenging. Each song has a character of its own.”

Person, who with Jones appears at Vine St. Bar & Grill tonight and Saturday and next Wednesday through Saturday, thinks that delivering songs with a sentimental tinge is of prime importance.

“The tunes we do, you can really emote on, and get the feeling across,” he said. “We do them that way, not by yelling and screaming, but honestly and emotionally.”

“I try to tell a story when I sing,” said Jones, who had a hit with “Don’t Go to Strangers” in the early ‘60s. “There are times when I feel (a song) more than others, as when I lost my daughter two years ago. Houston would play a ballad so sadly, I’d have to leave the room. I’d burst into tears, as all kinds of memories came back. Sometimes a tune is pretty and it makes you sad.”

The blues is another essential element of their performances, said Person, who admitted to having “a natural affinity” for that particular manner of musical expression. “You can really get into yourself with the blues,” he said. “Blues is so honest. I try to emote that feeling in whatever I’m playing. There seems to be a little blues and a little sadness in everything musical, and there’s a little beauty too. A song like ‘Here’s That Rainy Day,’ . . . Hey, that’s the blues.”

The pair’s performances are loosely structured, said Person, whose latest solo LP is “Talk of the Town” (Muse). “We like to just wing it and let it happen,” he said. “If you have sensitive guys, things just shape up naturally. We do it and the music takes care of us. With good material, the music will work itself out.”

Jones also embraces this simplistic yet effective approach. “All I ever wanted to be was a flat-footed singer, just stand there and sing,” she said. “I don’t have time for choreography, or waving my arms at a certain spot. If I’m gonna do something, it’s got to be spontaneous. I can’t plan it.”

If they do nothing but standards, don’t they get a little tired of the same old songs night after night? “No,” said Person, laughing. “There’s a million of them. Besides, we never do them the same way twice. I might play ‘Mean to Me’ as a fast song one night, and as a ballad the next. That gives it a whole different feeling.” Jones said that she changes interpretations of the same songs by stressing different words.

The partnership, which is managed by Person--”He has a head for business,” said Jones--is successful enough to keep the two working steadily. “I do my own booking and I have a clientele I’ve built up over the years,” he said. “So it’s just a matter of picking up the phone and making out the schedule. We’re already booked up through this year.”

Both Jones, whose most recent LP is “Fine and Mellow” (Muse), and Person feel mutual respect is the key to their longevity as a team. “We don’t get in the way of each other,” he said. “The show is bigger than each of us singularly. I’m thinking of the set in its entirety.”

“He has my interest at heart,” Jones said. “I don’t have to worry about anything except my lyrics. We don’t have jealousies. I don’t say we don’t have ups and downs but not to the point of distraction, or where we can’t remain partners. And he knows exactly how I sing, so he knows where to fill behind me. That comes with years of working together and liking, respecting each other.”