WEEKEND REVIEW : Pop : ‘Colors of Christmas’ Offers Crowd-Pleasing Favorites

Four of the most adept and accomplished singers in pop music came up with an Open-Before-Christmas present on Saturday at the Universal Amphitheatre. Peabo Bryson, Roberta Flack, James Ingram and Melissa Manchester were the centerpiece of a crowd-pleasing entertainment titled “The Colors of Christmas.”

With one exception, nothing much was surprising. Yuletide music events do not provide the venues artists usually choose to break in new material.

But that one unusual item almost stole the show. When the Crenshaw High School Choir came out after intermission and started to sing, tentatively at first, a gospel-drenched interpretation of the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “Messiah,” the concert came to life. What had been until that point a well-crafted, pleasant program of music was converted into a foot-tapping, hand-clapping celebration of Christmas joy.

The balance of the evening had its own charms. Bryson began with “The Christmas Song,” sung during a hand-shaking, listener-hugging trip around the audience. Flack, still blessed with a gorgeous sound, joined him for a reprise of her Donny Hathaway hit “The Closer I Get to You” and a rich, emotional reading of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

Ingram’s wide-ranging baritone voice soared across layers of “Silent Night,” followed by a duet with Bryson on “Yah Mo B There.” Manchester belted her way through “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” but was far more appealing in a low-keyed “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

Appropriately, the finest moments in this big, engaging evening, were the smallest ones: Flack’s lovely, simple version of a Southern Christmas song, “The Cherry Tree Carol,” and the wide- eyed looks of the children who joined Bryson and Manchester for “A Whole New World.”

* “The Colors of Christmas” will play Thursday through Saturday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos, 8 p.m. Sold out. (310) 916-8500.