Nancy Wilson: How Very Glad She Is to Play Strand

Nancy Wilson will take the small venue over the big any day.

Last summer, the veteran singer worked for an audience of 10,000 fans when she headlined a tribute to alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley at the Hollywood Bowl. On Saturday, Wilson appears at the 600-seat Strand in Rendondo Beach, and she says the intimate venue is much more to her liking.

“The Strand feels like home. That’s where I can do my show, be me,” she says. “That’s how I grew up, working in those intimate settings. I do some pops concerts with symphonies in large halls, but you can’t get that warm feeling . . . like you can in a club.”

And clubs Wilson regularly works, such as the Strand, New York’s Blue Note and Washington’s Jazz Alley, are ideal venues for what she called her strongest suit: “The big ballad.”

“A dramatic song, that’s Nancy Wilson,” says the Los Angeles resident. “I have a gift for telling stories, making something seem larger than life. If it doesn’t have feeling and warmth, I don’t want to do it.”

Wilson’s No. 1 story vehicle is her signature piece, “Guess Who I Saw Today?” When she heard Carmen McRae’s version of the song--about a husband’s infidelity--as a teen-ager, “I fell in love with it and started singing it,” she says. Later, the piece launched her career when her 1960 single became a hit.

The vocalist’s renditions of the number have changed markedly over time. At first, she did it demurely; now she’s much more brazen, literally shouting out the climactic lyrics. “I’m older now, I’m more mature, and I can’t do it like a little girl being shocked anymore,” says Wilson, now 56.

Long dubbed a jazz singer, Wilson thinks differently, and feels she got the tag because she’s black. “I don’t scat and I don’t think I’m that innovative, I just sing songs,” says Wilson. “Besides, my Grammy (1964’s “How Glad I Am”) was for a pop song, and I was nominated for an R&B; tune,” 1988’s “Forbidden Lover.”

At the Strand, Wilson will do tunes recorded throughout her career, perhaps including such back-beat driven numbers as “Now I Know,” from her 1989 album, “A Lady With a Song,” and selections from her upcoming “Love, Nancy,” due out next spring. Of course, she’ll do “Guess Who I Saw Today.”

“I can’t get away without singing it,” she says.

Studio Calls: Guitarist John Scofield’s special guest on his next Blue Note album due for March release will be Pat Metheny. After playing a three-night club engagement in Upstate New York, the pair stepped into Manhattan’s Power Station on Dec. 10 through 12 to make a quartet album that also featured bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart. . . . Scofield, pianists Herbie Hancock and Alan Broadbent, guitarist Robben Ford, bassist Charlie Haden, vibist Mike Mainieri and saxophonist Michael Brecker are taking part in a Private Music label album headlined by harmonica player Toots Thielemans, to be co-produced by Brazilian guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves and Miles Goodman. The album, which will be recorded Saturday through Tuesday in Los Angeles and Dec. 27 through 29 in New York, will feature Thielemans with all-star groups from the West and East coasts playing such jazz classics as “Giant Steps” and “Ornithology.”

Critic’s Choices: Trumpeter Conte Candoli, who snaps out be-bop as well as anyone, leads a quintet featuring ace saxman Pete Christlieb tonight and Saturday at the Club Brasserie . . . Buster Cooper and Thurman Green, two men who can really make their trombones sing, front a quintet Saturday at Chadney’s . . . Ralph Penland, a sensitive yet insistent drummer, leads his Penland Polygon with bassist Robert Hurst, trumpeter Charles Moore and tenorist Gerald Pinter tonight at the Jazz Bakery . . . Billy Childs’ seething Electric Band is ensconced Sunday at La Ve Lee.