Clooney Still Puts the Stars in Fans’ Eyes

“Now we’re going to do one from the ‘50s,” said Rosemary Clooney near the start of her performance at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center Friday night, “so that you’ll know which girl singer I was.”

Her use of the past tense at the end of the sentence was pointed, of course, since Clooney was indeed one of a number of major female pop vocalists--Doris Day and Patti Page were others--who were highly visible in the ‘50s. But Clooney not only survived the decade and the intervening years, she triumphed over them. At 69--she will be 70 in May--she has survived a devastating array of personal and professional problems (many of them chronicled in her autobiography, “This for Remembering,” and the 1982 CBS-TV movie “Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story”) to become a high-achieving, late-blooming, jazz-influenced singer.

A packed audience applauded her comment in a gesture of warm familiarity, and she rewarded their affection with a program of songs reaching from those old ‘50s hits (“Come On-a My House” and “Hey, There”) to standards and a few new numbers. The rich, throaty sound--which has been her hallmark--was in fine form, beautifully supported by the smooth, swinging rhythms that have emerged in her singing over the past decade.

Clooney has expressed a desire to reach out to audiences in large venues such as Cerritos with the kind of intimate connection associated with much smaller cabaret performances. Toward that end, she interspersed a series of small, personal vignettes between numbers. Most were filled with gently self-deprecating humor, and all were delivered with the laid-back whimsy and perfect timing of a talented stand-up comic.

But the heart and soul of her performance, appropriately, rested in the songs and the musically thoughtful way in which she rendered them. Accompanied by the Count Basie Band, she sang tunes such as “God Bless the Child” and “Come Rain or Come Shine” with an easy confidence. And on “I’m Confessin’,” accompanied by the rhythm section alone, she revealed the essential jazz qualities of her mature performing art.

Opening the evening, the Basie Band, conducted by Grover Mitchell, romped through a string of familiar hits, including--perhaps predictably--”Splanky,” “April in Paris” and “Whirly Birds.” A Grammy Award winner this year, the band played with the vigor and enthusiasm of an ensemble good enough to make it on its own, even without the familiar associations from the past.