Jazz : Delightful Set by N.Y. Voices

The five enthusiastic performers who call themselves New York Voices took over the stage of At My Place on Friday and conquered the room with a wildly diverse repertoire that left no taste unsatisfied.

For the pop-at-heart they offered Stevie Wonder’s “Too High,” with Sara Krieger as lead vocalist, and the Earth, Wind & Fire song “That’s the Way of the World.” For the message seekers they had “National Amnesia,” in which they attacked poverty and starvation. Less pretentious and more lyrically significant were “Soon One Day,” written by Caprice Fox, the lead singer, and “Now That the Love Is Over,” featuring Kim Nazarian.

Fox and Darmon Meader are the most valuable contributors, the former displaying an adjustable vocal technique that swung with ease from contralto to soprano and from words to scat to vocalese. Meader writes the charts, sings, plays saxes and an Electric Wind Instrument, all capably.

In jazz territory the group borrows from distinguished sources: John Coltrane for “Giant Steps,” Oliver Nelson for “Stolen Moments” (fitted with apt lyrics by Mark Murphy) and the famous Jon Hendricks adaptation of Duke Ellington’s “Cotton Tail,” taken note for note from Duke’s instrumental--even Ben Webster’s sax chorus was lyricized by Peter Eldridge.

Monk’s “ ‘Round Midnight” began with a long, pseudo-Monk piano solo by Andy Ezrin (who with bassist Randy Landau and drummer Tommy Igoe supplied the backup). From there, it built into a brilliant a cappella vocal, and eventually into a collective scat riot.

The quintet relies on every variety of nonverbal singing known to mankind: Ad-lib scat, contrapuntal scat, even hissing-and-hollering scat that became a bit overwrought. As entertainment the Voices are a delight; creatively, they ought to impose a scat-ute of limitations.