Jazz Reviews : Bobbie McFerrin Shows His Broadening Vision

It’s no surprise that the jazz community has a strong proprietary interest in singer Bobby McFerrin. His skills, versatile though they may be, are firmly rooted in the jazz tradition.

Yet, at his concert Saturday night at El Camino College’s South Bay Center for the Arts, McFerrin suggested (as he also does on his new EMI-Manhattan recording, “Simple Pleasures”) that his own perception of his artistic skills has begun to encompass an increasingly broad vision.

A good two-thirds of his performance was devoted to the entertaining audience-interaction pieces that he does so well. At their best, they were very good indeed. A “light and dark” improvisation, for example, in which McFerrin used a spot-lighted stage to create an impromptu sight and sound contrast of conflicting forces, had the creative density of good performance art.

Other interaction with the audience was appealing as pure entertainment: the creation of an instant chorus, complete with sopranos, altos, tenors and basses, from members of the audience; the tossing back and forth of themes and lines from television shows and films; a musical ramble over and around the seats of the auditorium.

When he dug into material that more effectively challenged his musicality, however--pieces like Thelonious Monk’s “ ‘Round Midnight,” and “Straight, No Chaser,” Lennon and McCartney’s “Blackbird,” and a ballad interpretation of “Over the Rainbow”--McFerrin performed them so well, with such astonishing harmonic authenticity and rhythmic energy, that it was hard not to regret the diminishing role that jazz is now playing in his repertoire.