JAZZ REVIEW : Perry and Koz Step Up to Star Billing at Roxy

Phil Perry has turned up the heat. After years of laboring as a super back-up singer and a pinch-hitter for instrumentalists who needed a vocal track for their albums, he is finally breaking out with his own solo career.

Tuesday night he appeared at the Roxy, sharing star billing with saxophonist Dave Koz, another performer who is moving from the supporting cast to top billing. Perry and Koz--both of whom have just released their first solo albums on Capitol--were clearly eager to make the most of a high-profile, Los Angeles opportunity to validate their emerging new status.

There has never been any doubt about Perry’s ability to generate incendiary performances. His readings of Aretha Franklin’s hit, “Call Me,” Richard Marx’s “The Best of Me” and the new album’s first single, “Amazing Love,” were virtual eruptions of nonstop energy, overflowing with high-powered emotion and intensity. But it remains to be seen whether the commanding impact of presentations such as this one can be effectively communicated via his recordings.

Koz is also the kind of artist who appears to work best when he is in direct contact with his audience. And, like the instrumental band leaders of the Swing Era, he brightened his somewhat modest improvisatory skills with a dramatic exposition overflowing with flashing eyes, sly smiles and dramatic poses.

Pieces like “Emily,” “Castle of Dreams” and “Yesterday’s Rain” ranged from straight-ahead funk rhythms to occasional, drifting New Age-ish textures. Koz generally sounded best on alto saxophone, in part because it seemed to provoke his warmest playing. But his performances were never less than amiable, and at their best had the ring of well-crafted, contemporary instrumental pop music.