JAZZ REVIEW : Collins Performs Coleman, Tyner

The music of Ornette Coleman and McCoy Tyner in the cool and elegant atmosphere of the Westwood Marquis Hotel and Gardens? Well, yes, in a sense. Actually, it was pianist and singer Joyce Collins playing the works of the two radical jazz composers.

Even so, it was strikingly innovative programming, and a fascinating aspect of Collins’ Tuesday-evening performance. Working with bassist Bob Maize in one of Los Angeles’ most civilized listening spaces, the veteran pianist ranged across the musical spectrum--from Coleman and Tyner to Jerome Kern and bossa nova.

Collins, who spent six months coaching Beau Bridges for his part in “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” has been an under-recognized artist, and it’s hard to understand why she’s been so overlooked.

Far from the kind of lounge performance that covers a quavering vibrato with heavily-pedaled chords and shaky rhythms, Collins’ work at the Westwood was that of a first-rate modern-jazz instrumentalist who sings with the penetrating insights of a cabaret artist.

On Coleman’s “Turnaround,” Tyner’s “Inception” and a bossa nova original, “Sweet Madness,” she fashioned hard-swinging be-bop lines; on “Body and Soul,” she somehow managed to uncover new lodes of harmony in a song that seemed mined to the core. Switching to vocals, Collins applied her warm and husky contralto to Kern’s “In Love in Vain” and, most notably, to a stunning interpretation of the rarely heard “Job Application” (from “Ballroom”).

Maize, whose bass maintained a solid rhythmic foundation, also soloed with soaring lines that countered Collins’ brisk piano.

The Collins duo continues at the Westwood Marquis Hotel and Gardens through Saturday and returns next Tuesday through Saturday, April 14.