POP MUSIC REVIEW : Nancy Dussault Transforms Cinegrill Into Delightful Cabaret

Nancy Dussault has a refreshingly primal view of cabaret. A basic black dress, a string of pearls, some excellent songs and a strong accompanist. That’s all she needed at the Cinegrill on Monday night--that and the accumulated talent and experience to create her own mini-world of music and theater.

Dussault, whose far-ranging career has included stage, films and television, easily handled the smaller, more intimate requirements of cabaret. Alternately humorous, bawdy, sentimental and tender, she brought a strikingly diverse musical palette to her 80-minute set.

Best of all, her program assiduously avoided the chestnuts often favored by performers of her generation and background. Instead, she combined tunes in ways that added new perspectives to each: “I’m in Love Again” with “I’m Not Getting Married Today”; “On My Way to You” with “Heart and Soul.” And she uncovered delightfully whimsical if sadly obscure material from the past: Noel Coward’s “Chase Me, Charlie” and Morton Gould and Dorothy Fields’ “There Must Be Something Better Than Love.”

Dussault did it all with a constant awareness of the essential ingredients of good cabaret--a respect for lyrics and music, a close interaction with the audience and a rich understanding of songs as stories.

* Nancy Dussault appears every Monday in June at the Cinegrill, Radisson Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., 8:30 p.m. $12 cover, $10 drink minimum. (213) 466-7000.