JAZZ REVIEW : Lee, Torme Team at Bowl

Whose concert was it, anyway? The presentation offered Friday and Saturday at the Hollywood Bowl was on one level a double vocal bill starring Mel Torme and Peggy Lee. It was also, no doubt for the benefit of subscribers, a partly instrumental affair with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic opening each half playing agreeable but expendable works by John Williams, Frank Proto and Leonard Bernstein.

This dichotomy had the effect of reducing Peggy Lee’s set to 35 minutes; however, she returned to close the evening with Torme in three duets.

Having heard him last month at Carnegie Hall with five jazz musicians for backup, this reviewer can attest to Torme’s ability to reach optimum form without being supported, or at times saddled, by a large ensemble. In fact, his well-diversified show on Friday reached its peak in “The Folks Who Live on the Hill,” a superb song for which he had just trio accompaniment.

The orchestra did offer helpful support on Torme’s own arrangement of “Stardust” and on “When the World Was Young,” an exquisite French ballad with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Oddly, this was one of two songs associated with Peggy Lee; in his tribute to Benny Goodman (which ended with his impressive workout at the drums), Torme even included “Why Don’t You Do Right.”

Still, it was a memorable evening for Lee and her fans. Since a Pasadena concert in May, 1991, she had been inactive, due to a variety of ailments including a form of paralysis. Greatly improved now, she was able to walk onstage and sit down to offer glowing evidence that the Lee timbre, the Lee phrasing and the Lee sensitivity are undiminished.

All the tunes were either self-written or closely identified with her: “Things Are Swingin’,” “I Don’t Know Enough About You,” “Is That All There Is.” She closed by segueing from her own “Circle in the Sky” to a heartfelt “I’ll Be Seeing You.” How many singers can end a set with a slow ballad and draw a standing ovation? Lee can and did.

For the duo finale, Lee’s song “I Just Want to Dance All Night” found Torme supplying apt harmony parts. “Yes Indeed” (Torme’s arrangement) placed them in jubilant juxtaposition.

Attendance Friday was 11,018.