Pop Music Review : Warwick: New Focus, but ‘60s Hits Still Hot

Brazilian music was on Dionne Warwick’s mind Friday in the opening performance of a three-night run at the Hollywood Bowl. Although she paid appropriate tribute to many of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David songs that were hits for her in the ‘60s, most of her performance before a crowd of 8,511 focused on selections from her Brazilian album, “Aquarella do Brasil.”

But it was the Bacharach/David numbers, familiar enough in Warwick’s interpretations to have become pop music icons, that provided most of the evening’s highlights. Her renderings of tunes such as “Alfie” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose”--even done hastily and in medleys--clearly represent the peak achievements of her singing career.

Warwick started out sounding a bit constricted, having to push hard on her higher notes, and often electing to rephrase melodies to avoid their upper range. But she was fully warmed up after a few tunes, unexpectedly delivering a superb, understated reading of Cole Porter’s “So In Love.”

She was less successful with the Brazilian songs, kicking off a group of Antonio Carlos Jobim works with an obviously confused beginning in which she and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra seemed to be on different pages.

The balance of the set extended from Latin American classics “Tico, Tico” and “Brazil” to bossa nova and more contemporary material. But Warwick, despite her occasional use of Portuguese, never quite managed to get fully in sync with the music. Fortunately, she was aided by three colorful Brazilian dancers, who added much needed spice and energy to a program that was slowly verging toward lethargy.