Mixed Program Offers a Few High Points

Christmas seems to come earlier every year. Called back for an encore Wednesday at the Hollywood Bowl, vocal quartet Manhattan Transfer answered with an unlikely selection: “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

As hip as the group’s treatment of that holiday favorite was, it brought an added inexplicable touch to an already inexplicably mixed program that found the headliners sharing the stage with sedate pianist-vocalist Shirley Horn’s trio and the jazzy string foursome known as the Turtle Island String Quartet.

While searching for common thematic threads among the three disparate acts was a futile exercise, the program did have its share of high points, most notably during Horn’s quietly understated set. This is one time that subtlety, usually not a wise approach at the expansive Bowl, proved to be a winning formula. At times, the audience sat so quietly attentive that one could hear crickets calling from the surrounding hillsides.

Horn, who’s last appearance at the Bowl found her backed by an orchestra, has always done her best work in the trio setting. Here, backed by drummer Steve Williams and electric bassist Charles Able, she displayed her usual reserve and poignancy. Her finely tuned sense of drama was most apparent singing “Fever,” which earned the evening’s biggest response.

By contrast, Manhattan Transfer, appearing on the heels of a 20-concert European tour, seemed off its game. Backed by a 17-piece band, the foursome was hurt by poor amplification that sometimes turned three- and four-part harmonies into duets.

But even off its game, the Transfer’s blend of swing, bop, rock and gospel has its attractions. Especially notable were tunes from a forthcoming album dedicated to Fletcher Henderson and a heart-felt selection from Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s suite “Royal Ancestry: Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald,” led off by a recording of Ellington introducing the piece.

The Turtle Island String Quartet’s opening set was lost inside the Bowl’s spacious confines. The bow taps and box slaps that give the group’s music its rhythmic drive were so thinly amplified that tunes from Oliver Nelson, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis and Tower of Power were transparent to the point of invisibility.