POP MUSIC REVIEW : When Peggy Lee Greets 1993, the Fundamental Things Apply

What better way to break in the New Year than with the cool, caressing sound of Peggy Lee?

Thursday evening, at the Escoffier Room of the Beverly Hilton, this resilient woman offered evidence of a talent that has weathered countless storms of health problems and changes in popular taste.

Her mobility improved since her last local appearance, she walks on stage before sitting down to offer, in effect, a cross-section of the reasons that have sustained her through the decades.

She never was, never will be, a belter; throughout her performance, which ended just after midnight with “Auld Lang Syne,” she displayed the capacity for understatement that has long been a key to her art. Most of the songs are either her own composition (her opener was “I Love Being Here With You”) or others so irreversibly identified with her that she could as well have created them: “Fever,” of course, and the mystic, almost surreal “Is That All There Is?”

Even the more typical pop standards benefited from her laid-back blues touch. “As Time Goes By” was preceded by a “Casablanca” anecdote including a Humphrey Bogart sound bite.

Unlike any other singer not of African descent, Peggy Lee can sing the blues with a genuine feeling for the idiom. One very moving moment was a minor blues that sounded like a variant of “Fever” slowed down, with admirable guitar backing by Paul Viapiano.

For this occasion her regular five-piece group, with Emil Palame in splendid control as pianist and conductor, was augmented by a six-piece string section, used only occasionally and with discretion.

In a typical show of good taste, Lee approached the midnight hour without any razzmatazz; in fact, her last song as the hands reached 12 was “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

Only one adjective can sum up Lee’s artistry, today perhaps more than ever: Inspiring. She could give lessons to almost every singer, male or female, who currently dominates the pop music charts.