Ruthie Foster Big Band: Live at the Paramount

If you’re gonna sing in front of a big band, then you’re gonna need a big voice, and Ruthie Foster has one of those in her possession. The award-grabbing blues and soul singer has consistently put her skills to good use throughout her career, usually with compact ensembles, but here, at an Austin landmark, she takes it all up a few notches. Fronting a full battery of horns (10 of them!), in addition to the standard guitar-keys-bass-drums combo and a trio of vocalists, Foster dives into stylings that push her outside of her usual boundaries, most often on self-penned material, with a few detours into intriguing covers that fit the format ideally. One of those is Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire,” slowed down to a crawl and tenderized, giving the country classic a whole different context. The back-to-back “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Mack the Knife” that end the set are, perhaps, Foster’s way of saying, “I can do these my way too” but, for the most part, the performance is all about transposing Foster’s natural inclinations toward digging up the roots into something more expansive and celebratory. “Death Came a Knockin’ (Travelin’ Shoes),” a song that goes back to Foster’s 2004 Stages album, kicks up a storm in this guise, while “Runaway Soul,” the title track of her 2002 release, manages to turn the Paramount into one oversized roadhouse. But it’s those gospel-flavored tracks, like the opening “Brand New Day” and the 2017 tune “Joy Comes Back” that turn the gig into a revival meeting, and suggest the promise of more great things to come.