POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Frenetic Manchester Performance

Melissa Manchester has one of the most convincing voices in pop music. Why, then, does she expend so much energy mugging, waving her arms, jumping up and down from the piano and racing around the stage?

Maybe she just has to. Her vivacious presence Saturday during the second night of a two-night engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra nearly overshadowed fine performances of her past hits intermixed with a Gershwin medley and tributes to both Ella Fitzgerald and Edith Piaf. Her overly animated ways brought to mind the onstage antics of her friend and onetime boss Bette Midler.

Yet, when it comes to singing, her approach isn’t half as stylized as Midler’s. Manchester put strong, warm tones to her hits “Midnight Blue,” “Don’t Cry Out Loud” and “Looking Through the Eyes of Love” without resorting to vocal gimmickry or ungenuine appeals to emotion. She came across best on her own material and that from her songwriting clique (Carole Bayer Sager, Peter Allen, Kenny Loggins), but seemed less comfortable working through the Gershwin medley or scatting to “Lady Be Good.” Still, her expressive use of dynamics and the way her voice filled with breath during quieter passages was absolutely spine-tingling. If only she had stood still long enough for us to enjoy them.

Manchester’s voice took on a sultry quality during the Burt Bacharach-Hal David tune made famous by Dionne Warwick, “Walk On By,” while she mined its lower reaches for seductive appeal. With big orchestral backing and vocal echoes from her backup duo, it was one of the few numbers that seemed to emphasize sound over visual style. In contrast, her caged-tiger pacing during a slowed-down version of “I Got Rhythm” seemed hardly appropriate to the tempo of the song.

The symphony, under the direction of Richard Kaufman, opened the evening with a program of music written for TV and the movies, including themes from the 1940 Errol Flynn swashbuckler “The Sea Hawk,” “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and both the television and animated feature versions of “Beauty and the Beast.” Led by the string section, which performed with special clarity and expression, the orchestra hasn’t sounded better.

Guest artist Tommy Morgan, a longtime studio veteran who’s been heard on soundtracks to such programs as “The Waltons,” “China Beach” and “In the Heat of the Night,” added harmonica tones to the premiere public performances of Ken Wannberg’s suite from the television version of “Red River” (Wannberg was in the audience Saturday). With the composer at the piano, the symphony also performed Lee Holdrige’s love theme from the film “Splash.”