POP MUSIC REVIEW : Singing the Standards: For Toni Tennille, More Than Just a Career Detour

Pop singers from Linda Ronstadt to Elvis Costello have flirted with jazz and standard material. But Toni Tennille takes her love for The Great American Songbook (as Tony Bennett calls the music by and in the tradition of George Gershwin and Cole Porter) well beyond an idle flirtation.

Tennille is best known as the voice of the Captain and Tennille, the soft-rock duo whose “Love Will Keep Us Together” went to No. 1 in 1975 (the two will release a new album later this year). But ever since her recording of “More Than You Know” 11 years ago, she has pursued a parallel career, singing standards in front of big bands and symphonies. Her appearance Saturday at the Robert B. Moore Theatre on the Orange Coast College campus proved just how deep her passion for this music runs.

Backed by saxophonist Matt Catingub’s 14-piece big band, she explored the work of Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer during the first half of the show, and after intermission sang her favorites by Jerome Kern, Peggy Lee, Sammy Cahn and others. (For good measure, there was even a big-band, beat-heavy Sammy Nestico arrangement of “Love Will Keep Us Together.”)

Tennille comes naturally to this material. Her father, like Costello’s, sang with big bands, which may explain the sincerity and respect that shone through her performance. Her devotion to the music came across as more than infatuation or a detour from a more commercial career. In her way, she made the songs live.

Her delivery was straight and true, without stylistic nonsense. The meaning of each lyric became central, an emphasis that turned such plot-heavy numbers as “Guess Who I Saw Today” into gripping stories.

She has a comfortable, beige-colored tone and a way of just touching the end of a note with vibrato. When her pitch seemed to wander, she pulled it back confidently on a sustained tone. She announced that she was suffering from the effects of a cold, which explained the hoarseness that entered her voice as the evening went on.

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Still, bad amplification--harsh, and with an irritating reverberation--marred the qualities of her sound. Only when the mike dropped away from her voice did its true character become evident. On the other hand, the 14 pieces of Catingub’s band came across beautifully.

Introducing each song with informative, entertaining stories of how they came to be, Tennille gave both educational and nostalgic touches to the evening. The band arrangements, mostly by Nestico and Catingub, were of two sorts: bittersweet ballad affairs with touches of brass, and out-and-out swing sessions.

Tennille paid each soloist his due, applauding strong efforts from Catingub, saxophonist Rusty Higgins and trumpeter Steve Huffsteter. Left alone with pianist Scott Lavender (currently Johnny Mathis’ musical director), she delivered some of her most moving vocals.

The evenness and good-natured appeal of her presentation began to wear during the second set. Tennille is not the hardest swinger around. One wished for a little more naughtiness when she sang “Teach Me Tonight.”

And the inclusion of Lee’s “Manana,” a Latin-flavored piece of dubious merit, was a novelty that seemed strange in light of today’s politically correct pretensions.

But every time she got off the track, she would turn around and produce something extraordinary, as she did with her smoky, deep tones on “The Man With The Horn.”

As a champion of The Great American Songbook, Toni Tennille is better, and certainly more serious, than most.