JAZZ REVIEW : Carmen Lundy’s West Coast Debut

The conditions for Carmen Lundy’s West Coast debut could hardly have been less auspicious last weekend. The venue was the Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant in Santa Monica. A handful of customers gathered in the gloomy room. Lundy was not even provided a microphone.

Yet she overcame. She overcame, in fact, magnificently. The absence of a mike was actually an advantage, enabling her to move freely about the small stage and exercise her graceful hand motions.

Succinctly: Carmen Lundy has it all. Tall, attractive, slender, she is an uncompromising jazz singer whose every note is bulls-eye accurate. A trained musician, she writes her own lyrics and music and arrangements. One of her songs, “Time Is Love,” written in 5/4, deserves to be a standard. “Samba de la Playa” and “Show Me That You Love Me” were well crafted and flawlessly delivered.

Her set included only two standards, “Dindi” and “The Lamp Is Low.” The Brazilian song has never sounded fresher or more touching. “Lamp,” a 1939 adaptation of a theme by Ravel, is one of the great neglected pop songs; Lundy sang it as if she had composed it.

Her accompaniment could hardly have been better. She had John Clayton, everyone’s bassist of choice, and at the piano an old friend, David Roitstein, now on the faculty at CalArts.

Lundy is the singer people may be unconsciously referring to when they ask where the next Ella or Sarah is coming from. Despite 12 years in New York and two albums, she has remained on the down side of the big time and is considering a move to the Southland. The Big Apple’s loss would be our unquestionable gain.