Sweet Echoes of the Past

For music fans with a feeling for nostalgia, Tuesday night was like being in Manhattan in, say, 1958. At one end of town, at Catalina Bar & Grill, cabaret singer-pianist Bobby Short was performing with a nine-piece band. To the south, off Venice Boulevard at the Jazz Bakery, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross were reviving memories of the jazz vocal group Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.

The last time a similar combination of talent could have been heard at the same time in the same general area was around 1961, when L,H&R; were the hottest vocal group in jazz and Short was working his cabaret magic at the East Side’s Blue Angel bar.

Nearly 40 years later, and a continent away, both acts proved Tuesday night that they are still capable of drawing standing-room-only audiences and giving them what they want.

True, there were some fundamental differences: Short was working in front of a large ensemble instead of his more typical trio; and Hendricks and Ross were without the musically whimsical contributions of Dave Lambert, who died in a Connecticut freeway accident in 1966.

But the crowds showed up, regardless. At Catalina, an obviously upscale audience showered Short with praise in two or three languages. And when problems with a microphone distorted his first few tunes, they waited quietly until the problem was solved.

Short’s idiosyncratic style was on full display. His utterly unique-sounding voice, with its furry edge and its sweeping, intermittently passionate phrasing, brought new illumination to such old standards as “Sunny Side of the Street,” “Body and Soul,” “At Long Last Love” and “Our Love Is Here to Stay.”

Curiously, the band--despite the presence of such first-rate jazz artists as trumpeter Ron Stout and saxophonists Jeff Clayton and Loren Schoenberg--often seemed more a distraction than a support. While the ensemble textures, especially on the slower ballads, were often lovely, only rarely did they match the sudden, unpredictable shifts of emotion so common to Short’s singing style.

In the relatively brief passages with his trio, however, Short was at his finest. As he so often does, he offered the largely forgotten verses to many of the songs, adding new dimensions of meaning as he did so. And he brought even the most familiar songs--”Our Love Is Here to Stay” was a good example--to life with an interpretive flair that balanced elegant sophistication with a straightforward understanding of the precise connections between words and music.

Later in the evening, at the Jazz Bakery, Hendricks and Ross offered up their own understanding of those connections. Among the foremost practitioners of the tongue-twisting feat of spinning words to the lines of jazz improvisations, both were rhythmically right on target in a series of romps through such classics as “Farmer’s Market,” “Going to Chicago” and “Jumpin’ at the Woodside.”

Ross’ smoky voice occasionally aimed at, but did not quite hit, some of the pitches, but there was no denying the intensity and the spirit of her performance. And Hendricks, who also sang several new pieces--including a lovely jazz artists’ tribute, “Music Is Forever”--is still the great master of jazz vocalese.

Musically, the differences between Short and Hendricks and Ross were far greater than the similarities. But the sense of period they evoked was inextricably linked--the sense of a time when jazz in all its forms was everywhere, a time when one could, in a single night, cruise around town, casually experiencing the work of several world-class musical artists.

* Bobby Short and his orchestra at Catalina Bar & Grill through Sunday. 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., (213) 466-2210. $46.50 tonight at 8:30 and $41.50 at 10:30; $56.50 cover Friday, Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m.; $51.50 cover Friday and Saturday at 10:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9 p.m. Two-drink minimum.

Annie Ross and Jon Hendricks at the Jazz Bakery through Saturday. 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City, (310) 271-9039. $20 admission tonight at 8 and 9:30, and $25 admission Friday and Saturday at 8 and 9:30 p.m.