JAZZ REVIEW : Lundy Serves Up a Banquet of Sounds

HUNTINGTON BEACH--Refusing to kowtow for even a moment to the mundane, Carmen Lundy offered a sumptuous banquet of jazz-based singing Saturday at Maxwell’s.

With sublime accompaniment from pianist Billy Childs and bassist Dave Stone, the slim, elegant native New Yorker never stopped reaching for the unexpected. From a singer of lesser strengths, such a ceaseless search might have proved trying. But Lundy’s poise and talent melded in a performance that shimmered like the waves of spangles adorning her filmy gold tunic.

During her first set Saturday (she was at Maxwell’s Friday through Sunday), Lundy applied her potent alto to “The Lamp Is Low,” “Dindi,” “A Child Is Born,” “Invitation” and other numbers.

An ideal opener, “The Lamp Is Low” was taken initially at an oozingly slow clip, then at a medium bossa-nova pace. Lundy dragged out the first few phrases--almost reluctantly, as if they were secrets--and added more and more breath until the song swelled and filled, buoyed by her rich, rolling vibrato and keen sense of pitch.

At the medium bossa-nova tempo, she started to take more liberties, sliding up into some notes and chopping others off as if she were slicing stalks of celery for chicken salad. Her climaxes were hard and powerful. After some scat phrases, she tossed the word “tonight” around as if it were a football and then slowly, gradually, headed toward silence.

“My Favorite Things” was imbued with the flavor of John Coltrane’s classic 1960 rendition as Childs hit chords a la McCoy Tyner and Stone contributed an undulating bass line that anchored the piece. Again Lundy extended some words, bit others off, and scatted melismatically. She and Childs--who had not performed together before this weekend--locked into similar rhythmic patterns. Lundy ended with a long, vibrant vamp, singing the ultimate lyric (“I don’t feel so bad”) over and over in different ranges and at different volumes before scatting to a close.

Thad Jones’ “A Child Is Born” was done fairly straight and led to a finger-popper “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.” Again Lundy used repetition effectively (“it was grand, it was grand, it was GRAND . . . to be alive”).

Lundy’s own “Samba de la Playa” from her recent “Moment to Moment” album on Arabesque Records evoked the seashore, particularly with its bubbling rhythms. It segued into Jobim’s “Dindi” and Bronoslav Kaper’s “Invitation,” where Lundy once more exploited her delicious range.

Childs enhanced the entire set with lines that were emotional, like lovers’ whispers, and others as dashing and colorful as Roman candles going off on the Fourth of July. Lundy sings Friday at Lunaria in Los Angeles.