Anne Adessa wasn't going to be lured out of retirement for live performance by any old band.

It took the John Dare Trio - consisting of Dare on drums, Bob Barbuto on piano and Mike Solazzo on bass - to coax Adessa back onto the stage for her first show following a 10-year sabbatical.

“It's the exact right music,” Adessa said. “And we all have the same idea of how we want to work.”

The music is a mixture of pop, jazz, R&B and other styles from artists Dare groups under the umbrella of “American classical:” George Gershwin, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane and more. The trio asked Adessa to learn and rehearse about a third of their 300-song repertoire. With a laugh, she said she enjoyed veto power over a few.

“It's a lot of stuff no one's heard live before,” Adessa said.

Dare added, “But when they hear it, they'll recognize it.”

The love of playing music Adessa shares with the Dare Trio extends up both her and Dare's family trees. Her uncle, drummer Herbie LaHood, played with Dare's father, Bob. Both also pass on their musical craft to students.

“It's always better to do what you teach,” Adessa said. “I'll be playing piano and say to myself, 'If I had a student clamp down on a note like that I'd be screaming at them.'”

Adessa and Dare both envision music not as a side function of a party atmosphere, but a creative process in which the band members give and take to craft an entirely different product each night from the same piece of music. At their age, they feel there's little ego to get in the way of this pursuit. Adessa and Dare also understand that music is a way of life for themselves.

“It's not a choice or an option, it's who we are,” Adessa said.

Despite the shared sentiments that suggest years of collaboration between them, it wasn't until around Christmas last year that Adessa and Dare first joined up. Dare was sharing his trio's search for a singer with Mike Speno, of Speno Music, who suggested Adessa knowing she was considering a return to the stage. Dare was quick to contact Adessa, whom he had seen on stage in the 1970s with her dance band, Cloudburst.

“One moment she can be really aggressive and sultry, the next very sensitive; but always soulful,” Dare said. “She can hold an audience's attention musically, and with humor.”

Following several years of musical theater performance, opening for artists like B.B. King and Chuck Berry, and recording with groups Cloudburst and Freefall, Adessa began her decade-long rest from the stage.

Adessa spent her time away from live performance raising her children and serving as musical director for two area churches. When her children had grown up and her time freed up, Adessa began considering a comeback. With their aspirations to perform less at bars than festivals, hotels, private parties and business events in the Finger Lakes area - the trio's goals aligned with Adessa's.

The four felt the chemistry immediately.

“It was like we walked in and opened a book or flipped on a switch,” Adessa said. “When you get the right three or four people in a room, it's really something to behold.”

As a “more person,” Adessa is given the chance to indulge herself musically by Barbuto's shared penchant for heavy improvising. And as the bass player, Solazzo provides a mighty anchor to which Adessa can sing.

“Sometimes we go in directions you could never predict,” Dare said.

As they fine-tune their playing and prepare for possibly recording together, Adessa and the John Dare Trio are confident their American classical live shows will make a valuable addition to the Finger Lakes' musical oeuvre.

“It's a genre we'd like to preserve,” Adessa said. “People our age are starving for entertainment.”

Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net