Concerts Off to a Swinging Start

A major star headliner, a resident jazz orchestra and a sparkling new stage setup: singer-pianist Diana Krall, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and a setting straight out of a Busby Berkeley fantasy. Sounds like a great way to open the much-anticipated new summer season of jazz at the Hollywood Bowl.

And, for the most part Wednesday night, the carefully planned event delivered as promised, serving up a program of attractive performances to an enthusiastic audience of 9,040.

The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra played the opening segment of the program, concentrating for the most part upon a selection of familiar tunes arranged in unfamiliar but intriguing fashion by orchestra co-leader John Clayton. Ever in search of different perspectives, he consistently came up with renderings that were more than just orchestrations, perhaps better described as recompositions.

Billy Strayhorn’s classic “Take the ‘A’ Train,” for example, transformed the express train from 59th Street to Harlem into a rhythmically insinuating slow groove, featuring the slippery, sliding alto saxophone of co-leader Jeff Clayton. “Night Train” wittily reset the familiar, rocking melody into an offbeat meter that somehow resolved perfectly at the end of each phrase. And “Indiana” became a marvelously choreographed setting for the subtle, Fred Astaire-like drumming of the group’s other co-leader, Jeff Hamilton.

Diana Krall--clearly the object of the crowd’s affection--initially appeared with the Clayton ensemble, effectively applying her bourbon-and-honey voice to “You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me,” “East of the Sun” and, especially, “The Gentle Rain.”

But she received her warmest reception when she returned after the intermission to perform with her quartet. Romping through a selection of her familiar numbers, she was brisk and swinging with “Devil May Care” and “Let’s Fall in Love,” darkly sensual with her now-trademark bossa nova version of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and overflowing with whimsical sexiness in “Peel Me a Grape.”

At the conclusion of Krall’s quartet segment, however, the program took a sudden left turn when John Clayton elected to do a kind of on-stage interview with the singer. After a few minutes of patient listening, someone in the crowd expressed an apparent growing consensus by shouting, “What is this, ‘20/20’?”

The proceedings became further confused when Krall was obliged to move awkwardly around wires and monitors to stand in front of the orchestra to sing another pair of numbers that failed to jell effectively. Along the way, a new song composed by Clayton with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, as well as a Krall instrumental with the orchestra, reflected inadequate preparation time. Missing were a substantial portion of the songs--including the emerging hit “Popsicle Toes”--from Krall’s new album, “When I Look in Your Eyes.”

So call it a B+ for effort and accomplishment. And the new set, created by art director Rene Lagler, deserves an A for its fresh approach to big band staging, complete with dramatic multi-tiers and elegant black, white and silver paneling. But some procedural re-thinking needs to be done before the Bowl’s next jazz event--”Jazz Picante” on July 21.