Vocal Group Take 6 Briefly Steals the Show

They weren’t on stage for very long, but the performance by the a cappella vocal group Take 6 was the highlight of Wednesday’s Lexus Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl concert. While the group’s stylistic links reach well beyond the jazz arena, its songs were constantly tinged with the kind of rich harmonies and inherent swing that spring from a strong jazz sensibility.

On one number in particular--a romp through Miles Davis’ “All Blues”--the six remarkable singers, sometimes via instrumental simulations, revealed impressive scat-singing talents. And their ensemble work, powerfully driven by Alvin Chea’s percussive, vocalized bass lines, and a variety of cymbal, snare and brush simulations from others, had the propulsive force of a big jazz band.

Including a few of their familiar items in the program--”So Much 2 Say” and “Spread Love” among them--they repeatedly generated bursts of applause from the moderate-sized but enthusiastic Bowl crowd.

The singing of Take 6 clearly revealed roots in such predecessors as the Four Freshmen, the Hi-Los, the Beach Boys and Bobby McFerrin, as well as the energy and passion of the gospel choral tradition. But the group is also very much its own creation, combining a unique take on contemporary sounds and styles with these earlier influences. Perhaps most important of all, the group’s obviously superlative abilities were expressed with a clarity and joy that surely was connected with the strength of its members’ often-expressed spiritual beliefs. In fact, the only problem with the group’s appearance Wednesday night was that it was far too brief.

The Take 6 segment was preceded by performances by singers Dee Daniels, Kevin Mahogany and the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. Daniels applied her emotionally driven renderings to a set that included the unusual combination of “Somewhere” (from “West Side Story”) and the Frank Sinatra hit “That’s Life.” Mahogany romped across “Route 66” and added a tinge of Billy Eckstine phrasing to his robust voice in “Everything I Have Is Yours.” And the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra was its familiar, hard-swinging self in an opening set that featured splendid soloing from, among others, trumpeters Clay Jenkins and Oscar Brashear, trombonist George Bohanon, and the ensemble’s three co-leaders, bassist John Clayton, saxophonist Jeff Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton.