(Posted today on the TONY Blog)

What is it that makes Suzanne Vega so sexy? It’s not in what she
tells us, but what she refuses to reveal. The stories she’s told over
the past 20-plus years have been crammed with detail. But in the best
of them, she somehow suggests a worldliness that she seldom comes right
out and talks about, one that’s hard to square with her prim, aloof
demeanor. It’s that negative space—that unknowable quantity between
appearance and allusion—that makes Vega so hypnotic and, yes, ineffably
alluring.

We caught Vega last night at Joe’s Pub, where she offered a preview of Beauty & Crime, her first new studio album in close to six years, due out on Blue Note in July. Her last one,  Songs in Red and Gray,
came out two weeks after Sept. 11, she mentioned between songs mid-set.
Touring to support that album, she said, everyone she encountered on
the road wanted to know about how things were in New York City.

In a sense, Beauty & Crime is Vega’s long-awaited response. The
songs on the album deal with New York City in one way or another. Later
in the set, Vega mentioned that many others had been started over the
last six years, but she hadn’t been able to resolve all of them. (One was
provisionally titled “72 Virgins.”) Emblematic of the subject is “New
York Is a Woman,” the song that opened Vega’s set last night, which
describes the love-at-first-sight sensation this city sparks:

New York is a woman
She’ll make you cry
And to her, you’re just another guy

Clad in a slate-gray kimono-cut top, black slacks and hott shoes,
and fronting a sharp five-piece band, Vega ran through a clutch of
other numbers from Beauty & Crime: the breezy “Ludlow
Street” (with her young daughter Ruby Froom on backing vocals);
“Pornographer’s Dream,” an airy samba; “Frank & Ava,” a sunny song
about lovers who can’t get along outside of bed. “Angel’s Doorway” told
the story of a neighbor, a firefighter who worked at Ground Zero, whose
wife protested the smell that saturated his clothes. She spun this into
a metaphor for what we’re willing to allow into our homes and lives.
The melancholy message of “Anniversary” was lofted by swelling
four-part vocal harmonies, while “Zephyr & I,” about a meeting with
the legendary NYC graffiti artist, was pumped up by a backbeat that
could have been lifted from a Young Rascals single.

Vega will be playing a bigger showcase later this year, after the
record comes out. (Keep an eye on listings for the Town Hall in
November.) But this intimate showcase was something special; true fans
had come from distant lands, like Portugal and New Jersey. Vega didn’t
disappoint them, sprinkling older hits throughout the set. “Caramel”
was a sad, sexy bossa nova; “Left and Center” and “Blood Makes Noise”
were stripped-down duets with bassist Mike Veseglia.

After “In Liverpool” and, yes, “Luka,” Vega offered a surprise.
“Tom’s Diner” began with the usual a cappella verse, but then her band
kicked into an impressive recreation of the DNA dance remix that made
the song a phenomenon. It’s also a great metaphor for Vega’s appeal:
The stiff, unyielding dance beat doesn’t pay any attention to her chord
changes, but neither does she feel any need to compromise her melody to
fit anyone else’s demands. As she danced alone at center stage, you
first thought she was the shy nerd at the party, who swayed only when
she thought no one was looking. And then you realized that you had it
all wrong: She’s the one in charge, and she doesn’t care what you
think. And her not caring just makes you want her that much more.

For the encore, Vega headed all the way back to her debut album for
“Marlene on the Wall.” Immediately, we were undergrads in college all
over again, pondering where this elusive, wordy singer had come from,
and why she gave us chills. The song had a hypnotic effect back then.
It still does: We’ve got a fresh iTunes receipt to prove it.