JAZZ REVIEW : It’s Sommers Time at Vine St.

Joanie Sommers has been a perennial presence on the Southland scene since the 1960s, and an occasional visitor for several years to the Vine St. Bar & Grill, where she opened Thursday and closes tonight.

Some of her early successes were scored in the lucrative world of jingles, as she reminded us in a medley--composed mainly of plugs for Pepsi-Cola--placed somewhat irrelevantly near the end of her performance.

More in character were her ballads, most notably the Henry Mancini coupling of “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Two for the Road,” to which she brought a tender lyricism. Sommers was not blessed with a big voice, but then neither were Maxine Sullivan and others who knew that belting is not necessarily the name of the game. She reminds you of the wine about which the maitre d’ observes, “It’s a modest vintage, but I think you’ll admire its joie de vivre. “

Within her prescribed parameters, Sommers brought intelligent, jazz-informed detours to a series of standards. Some of these were relatively free from overexposure (“You Say You Care,” “My Foolish Heart”). On the other hand, there was a long, carefully planned Gershwin medley that kept pianist Frank Collett busily turning pages as Sommers plowed through familiar territory, ending with “Love Is Sweeping the Country,” which would be long forgotten had it not borne the Gershwins’ byline.

Collett, more than a mere accompanist, steered Sommers through all those busy upward modulations, soloed briskly on several tunes and played a brief but delightful opening set of instrumentals, highlighted by an easily swinging update of “Limehouse Blues.” He was backed by the impeccable Bob Maize on bass and the dependable Sherman Ferguson on drums; as Ira Gershwin might have commented, who could ask for anything more?