Schuur, King: A Blending of Disparate Styles Pays Off

The seamless sweep of Diane Schuur’s alto voice and B. B. King’s rough-and-tumble baritone may seem an improbable combination, but album buyers disagree.

“Heart to Heart,” the pair’s new recording on GRP Records, jumped to No. 1 on the Billboard magazine jazz charts in its initial week of release, bumping Tony Bennett’s “Stepping Out,” which was at the top of the chart for close to 30 weeks. “Heart to Heart” has been at No. 1 for six weeks, and Mark Wexler, a senior vice president at GRP, says that sales are still “very strong.”

The album, which was recorded at Capitol Studios in Hollywood late last year, contains a variety of songs, but not one single blues--King’s raison d’etre. There’s Don Gibson’s “You Don’t Know Me,” Aretha Franklin’s “Spirit in the Dark,” even an old chestnut like Irving Berlin’s “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket.” Many of these were a stretch for King, who is not known as a ballad singer.

“I’ve always liked jazz and standard songs, but for me to try and sing ‘em--no way!” King says with a laugh in a telephone interview from Oklahoma City. “It was a real challenge and real work. It made me feel good about myself that I tried to do this.”

On most of the selections, the pair did not sing as a duet. Schuur recorded her track, and then King added his. On two or three tunes, among them “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” they sang together.

“He delivered,” says Schuur, from her home in Seattle. “He sings with so much feeling.”

It was easier, King says, to record separately. “Otherwise, I’d just be listening to her, she sounds so good,” says King, who drops in typically ringing-note guitar solos on most tunes. “Compared to hers, my voice sounds like wheels on a gravel road.”

Asked to describe the toughest part in the recording, Schuur said it was the blending of her’s and King’s disparate styles. “He’s more laid back, I’m more intense, and we tried to meet somewhere in the middle,” she says.

The pair have appeared together twice since the recording, once in Memphis and again earlier this month at a celebration at Universal City that announced the fall opening of the B. B. King Blues Club on Universal’s CityWalk. No future dates have yet been set.

Adieu to Vine St.: The Vine St. Bar & Grill has closed. The 15-table Hollywood room, which opened in 1981 and presented such greats as Dizzy Gillespie and Joe Williams, ceased operating recently. “It’s finished,” said owner Ron Berenstein. “It’s going to be sold shortly.”

Berenstein cited numerous reasons for the closure. “There was a lack of interest on the part of the buying public for a small, independent jazz room,” he said. “That coupled with (California’s) economic circumstances, our location, the earthquake and other factors.”

Berenstein said he planned to open another restaurant in the near future, and perhaps he’ll have a jazz policy. “We’ll see what happens,” he says.

Goodby to ‘Smooth Jazz’: KAJZ-FM, the Santa Monica-based commercial jazz station that took up the jazz format in September, 1992, is no more. Two weeks ago, the station changed its call letters to KACD-FM, and now calls itself “CD 103.1,” using the slogan “Smooth Sounds for Southern California.”

The new format blends instrumental tracks by the likes of Grover Washington Jr. and Earl Klugh with more pop-leaning vocals by Anita Baker, Al Jarreau and others.

“We took the station from a jazz format and have turned it toward something with more mass appeal,” says Monica Thomas, KACD-FM’s program director, who previously worked in the same post at KOAI-FM in Dallas. “Now there will be strong adult vocals blended with melodic instrumentals, making the presentation more embraceable for people.”

KAJZ-FM offered listeners a blend of contemporary artists such as Klugh and Jarreau with mainstream jazz artists such as Oscar Peterson and Stan Getz. But, according to Thomas, the station never scored well in Arbitron ratings, its highest share being slightly over 1 point, its lowest, in a survey released earlier this year, a 0.4.