JAZZ REVIEW : Full Swing, Under Full Steam After a Tuneup

Full Swing has been the perennial bridesmaid of L.A. vocal groups--ready, willing and eager, but somehow always stopping just short of the altar of major success. Tuesday night at Santa Monica’s At My Place, however, the group displayed a number of changes that may finally help deliver a much-deserved winning bouquet.

Most immediately noticeable was the way in which the addition of singer Augie Johnson (replacing Bruce Scott) has given the group’s harmonies a somewhat mellower texture and brought an amiable, more outgoing quality to the performance.

Less obvious but equally important was the new tone and color brought to the trio by the arrival of Lorraine Feather as a uniquely gifted lyricist. When Full Swing dug into such Feather-penned originals as “The Jungle,” “Palacio Do Samba” (with music by Eddie Arkin) and “Last Port of Call” (with music by brothers Michael and Danny Sembello), one began to sense the emergence of a real group identity.

It was Feather’s lyrics for two swingers--tunes written 60 years apart yet curiously similar, Ellington/Carney’s “Rockin’ in Rhythm” and Arkin/Feather/Mark Winkler’s “Busted for Boppin’ “--that took Full Swing past the too easy comparisons with Manhattan Transfer and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross and into its own territory.

Charlotte Crossley continued to be the group’s strongest vocal personality, singing with a burry-edged sound that brought character and essence to “Palacio Do Samba.” But she was less effective on “Anything Can Happen Here,” a song that lacked the individuality of the group’s better material.

With a new Cypress Records album (“In Full Swing”) hitting the charts, its personnel stabilized and the identity-defining qualities of the new material, Full Swing had the look and feel of a bride ready, at last, to walk down the aisle toward stardom.