Erin Bode

Making her Native Language recording debut, vocalist Erin Bode stakes a claim as one of her generation’s most imaginative and melodically inspired singer/songwriters with The Little Garden.

Bode produced the session herself, working closely with her band (drummer Derrick Phillips; bassist (and husband) Syd Rodway; and songwriting partner Adam Maness on piano, guitar, Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer), to give each song a subtly calibrated instrumental setting. With the cohesiveness of a jazz combo, her band gracefully delineates each tune’s narrative arc. Several pieces feature expanded arrangements with strings, backup singers, and special guest soloist John Ellis on tenor sax and flute.

Recorded by the ensemble playing together in the studio – with minimal use of overdubs – The Little Garden picks up where Bode and Maness left off on her acclaimed Over and Over release (2006). Their gift for writing deceptively simple, endearing melodies has deepened over time, as have their lyrics. “These songs are the culmination of what we’ve been working on for the past two years,” Bode says. “On Over and Over, there was a lot of music that we wrote at a particular time of our life. Both Adam and I had just met the people we were going to marry, so there were a lot of love songs. The songs on The Little Garden have more life situations, things you go through daily, and so it’s a natural progression.”

While many reviewers have compared jazz-tinged Bode to Norah Jones, and Eva Cassidy (an early source of inspiration), she has forged her own path and sounds as little like her aforementioned peers as Nancy Wilson does Dinah Washington. She doesn’t shy away from the singer/songwriter label, feeling that it’s a wide enough river to accommodate all of her influences and interests.

“Genre boundaries are being blurred these days,” Bode says. “You can be a folk singer/songwriter or an R&B singer/songwriter. I guess I’m a jazz singer/songwriter because of the instrumentation. When you’re expressing your life through songs, and pouring out what you’re going through and your thoughts on things, that feels like singer/songwriter territory.”

In many ways, St. Louis has served as a little garden for Bode and her band, which has won an avid, devoted following in the city. An informed, discerning audience can empower an artist to experiment and try out new ideas, and Bode makes full use of that freedom, whether pulling out a neglected standard or introducing a new original piece. Living a few miles from her songwriting partner Maness means that they can get together whenever there’s a moment of inspiration.

“For the most part, we write everything together, but in different ways,” Bode says. “I have some lyrics or a melody and he helps me fill them out. He’ll come over with some chords or some lyrics and we’ll finish them together. Three of the songs on the new album are his entirely, including the title track. We try to vary our environments and the way we’re thinking about writing to keep each song unique, trying to have the music accurately reflect the lyric.”