TV REVIEW : ‘Black, Blue’ a Triumphant Dance, Song Revue

Conceived, directed and designed by Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli--the team that created “Tango Argentino” and “Flamenco Puro”--the glossy, propulsive African-American revue “Black and Blue” comes to PBS tonight in a largely triumphant version by film director Robert Altman.

The two-hour “Great Performances” telecast is scheduled at 8 p.m. on KVCR-TV Channel 24, and at 9 p.m. on KCET-TV Channel 28 and KPBS-TV Channel 15.

Altman humanizes the extreme stylization of “Black and Blue” by providing constant backstage perspectives on a 1991 Broadway performance: shots conveying the relationships and, sometimes, exhaustion of artists working at peak energy. The intercutting occasionally obliterates the shape and direction of group dances, but the gain in warmth proves welcome.

Essentially dance-driven, “Black and Blue” features the work of four choreographers: Cholly Atkins, Henry LeTang, Frankie Manning and Fayard Nicholas. Veteran tappers Bunny Briggs and Jimmy Slyde each present cherishable solos, but the exciting corps numbers show how strongly a younger generation has mastered tap traditions.

Many times, powerhouse singing fuels group choreography, as when Linda Hopkins’ gutsy “After You’ve Gone” launches a shadow fantasia. Creating a sense of unity-in-diversity, vertical panels, curtains and screens form the principal scenic motifs throughout, just as checkerboard patterns recur thematically in the costumes.

Besides their more intimate showcases, the show’s jazz divas frequently appear in grandiose, quasi-operatic contexts: Carrie Smith in front of a huge silver disc for “I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Blues,” for instance, or Ruth Brown literally up against the wall for a stark “Body and Soul.”

Conceived at theatrical scale, some of these song-stagings look downright peculiar on television--especially, perhaps, Smith’s performance of “Am I Blue” on a swing high above the Minskoff Theatre stage, with the fringed, gleaming train of her gown fanning out several stories below.

However, the telecast’s greatest lapse is failing to supply the identifications that the theater audience would have found in a program booklet. Many, many talented singers, dancers and musicians are featured here, but, most of the time, we never learn exactly who we’re watching.