POPS REVIEW : Legend Shares His Harmonica, Class With Pops

Harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler brought a touch of class to Wednesday night’s San Diego Symphony SummerPops concert at Hospitality Point. The 76-year-old stage veteran impressed the audience with his suave, accomplished playing and his delicious anecdotes about encounters with the likes of Maurice Ravel, George Gershwin and Paul Whiteman.

The stories may have had an apocryphal patina. (Did the teen-age Adler actually meet Gershwin while auditioning for Whiteman in his backstage dressing room?) But Adler’s impeccable deadpan delivery made you want to believe every word.

The variety of colors and ornamental effects Adler charmed from the harmonica places him in the company of virtuosos who play more respectable instruments. In George Enescu’s earthy “Romanian Rhapsody,” for example, Adler produced a throaty quality reminiscent of a concertina, but in Massenet’s “Meditation” from “Thais,” he floated a sweet, flutelike sonority.

Adler’s piece de resistance was an arrangement of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” in which he convincingly simulated the clarinet solos and much of the piano’s thematic material, including cadenzas. If the rhapsody sagged a bit in the middle, Adler gave it a zestful finale. A blessedly condensed version of Ravel’s “Bolero” proved a kindness to pops listeners surfeited by an excess of “Bolero” performances.

Genial, efficient guest conductor Carl Hermanns returned to the SummerPops podium, although he had some trouble keeping orchestra and soloist together in the “Romanian Rhapsody” and in one of Adler’s compositions, “Genevieve.”

Written in 1953 for the film comedy of the same name, “Genevieve” is one of those extroverted, saccharine waltzes typical of the period. Another Adler opus, “Screw’s Blues,” written for a British documentary, displayed a more sophisticated, jazzy idiom.

Jerry Adler, harmonica-playing younger brother to Larry Adler, soloed in Gershwin’s “The Man I Love,” with the older sibling adding piano accompaniment to the orchestra. Jerry Adler brought the wail of an alto sax to his interpretation of Gershwin’s familiar romantic ode. According to Larry Adler, it was the first time he and his brother performed together in a concert.

Hermanns took the orchestra through a brisk, stylish--and annoyingly over-amplified--reading of Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Festive Overture.” Hermanns also chose a glitzy orchestral arrangement of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” and Morton Gould’s “Pavane” to round out his program.

This program will be repeated tonight and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Hospitality Point. A free concert at Seaport Village will be given Sunday at 7:30 p.m.