According to my watch, Alyssa Coco has 14 minutes, 52 seconds remaining of her allotted 15 minutes of fame. At age 16, Coco made the grade over countless other young hopefuls to perform on "American Idol" only to be cut unceremoniously short barely 10 seconds into her Hollywood Week performance. Well, fuck those TV phonies. Coco has a beautiful voice and writes songs with a maturity that belies her youth. Now at 19, her talent couldn't be more apparent than it is in Tinted Image, the relatively new jazz/pop/funk/acoustic outfit that she fronts.

Coco's "American Idol" experience wasn't all bad; it led her to her current band, which also features guitarist Matt Merritt, saxophonist Joel Vickers, and other assorted musicians. Merritt and Vickers had been playing together since their days in the Spencerport High School jazz band. By their senior year they were playing in clubs. And when the need arose to make a little scratch, they branched out into the wedding arena playing pop tunes. But there was that underlying urge to play originals.

"You can't play all originals at a wedding," says Merritt. "They wouldn't be happy." But Merritt and Vickers wanted to play happily ever after and go beyond the pop tunes they did at weddings and the funky covers they pulled off at night. Then they landed a gig opening for Average White Band. The band was going to have to pick up its own pieces, and fast.

"One of the first songs we played as a band was ‘Pick Up The Pieces,'" Merritt says. "Joel had written some songs that were AWB-like, so we threw together some rough originals for that show." The band went over huge. Vickers even got invited up to play "Pick Up The Pieces" with AWB.

The next few months netted a number of gigs for the band, which still hadn't secured a permanent singer. Vickers and Merritt endured a lengthy parade of female vocalists before Coco strolled in.

"When she came in, we were still looking for ‘that voice,'" says Vickers. "When Alyssa came in we got goose bumps."

"She had her whole act together already," Merritt says. "As soon as we started with her is when it all came together."

Merritt and Vickers had both been writing within the group, but deferred to Coco's skills. "She was still in high school," Merritt says. "And I couldn't believe how professional she was. Once I checked out the stuff she was doing I was like, ‘You write better than us.'" Merritt was ready to defer even further.

"I've always said anytime she wants to call this the Alyssa Coco Band, we're all for that," he says.

Merritt, Vickers, and Coco pare Tinted Image down to play as an acoustic trio, or flesh it out with bass (Sean Conlon) and drums (Karl Thomas). It's within the trio setting that the songs prove themselves. At the core is Coco's sweet, sweet voice as it weaves in, out, and around her melodious inflections. In other words, this young woman can sing. Vickers' creamy smooth sax adds even more slither, as Merritt takes the jazz and makes it go pop. And of course there's always that full-band funk groove coiled and ready and waiting.

The Tinted Image trio will release its new "Acoustic Sessions" album on February 1 - "A nice, easy listen," Vickers says - and will begin recording a full-band, full-length project in the coming months, bringing its total discography to three. More and more supporting and headlining gigs dot the band's calendar, including a semi-regular engagement at The Bitter End in New York City.

Tinted Image is fresh and fun but doesn't delude itself; originality is often subjective to each listener's experience - or the band's.

"The original-ness of our music comes from where we've all come from," says Vickers. "And it just blends into this flavor."

"I was in a master class with Branford Marsalis," Merritt says. "And he said out of the entire human population, of how many people have created something original, to think you're in that small population is arrogant. So I don't go out there and say, ‘Oh, our sound's all new.'"

"We like the fact that after a show we can say that was our song, and they enjoyed it," Vickers says. "And not just because they recognized it."

Tinted Image

Opens for Little Feat and Donna The Buffalo

Friday, January 8

Water Street Music Hall, 204 N Water St.

8 p.m. | $30-$35 | 325-5600, tinted-image.com