Morrison Pleases Without Sacrificing Artistry

Communication, the ability to connect and interact with an audience, is something that is often misunderstood in jazz. Players who take the easy route of repetitious riffing to generate crowd excitement run the risk of not being taken seriously as imaginative artists. Those who ignore the audience in favor of an inner-directed involvement with their personal muses often fail to connect at all.

But there’s another approach, and singer Barbara Morrison demonstrated just how effective it can be on Friday in the opening set of a three-night run at Catalina Bar & Grill. Morrison (not to be confused with the country singer of the same name or Christian music singer Barbara T. Morrison) has been on the jazz scene since the ‘70s, working with Ray Charles, Cedar Walton, Kenny Burrell and dozens of others. Like other artists with her background, the circumstances of performing in every imaginable sort of venue have taught her that entertainment and artistry are not necessarily mutually exclusive, that it is possible to delight a crowd without sacrificing one’s creative integrity.

Which is exactly what Morrison did for a full house audience--one that cheered her peaks of high exuberance as well as her moments of intimate musical thoughtfulness. She was masterful with the blues, moving easily from the urban style of Percy Mayfield to down-home Texas blues to the hard-swinging drive of Mercer Ellington’s “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be.” The many subtle differences in style were handled with ease, and Morrison made superb use of the inherently dramatic framework of the blues to find the perfect balance between words and music.

Her ballads--”Lover Man,” “This Is Always”--occasionally revealed traces of Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday. But more often they were vintage Morrison, her surprisingly sweet voice and subtle jazz shadings contrasting in striking fashion with the more rough-hewn qualities of her blues numbers.

It was, in short, a superlative display of eclectic music-making, engaging as entertainment, compelling as jazz and aided enormously by a first-rate backup band featuring solid guitar work from Charles Small. Although Morrison concluded her brief Catalina run Sunday night, she appears several times a month at Fenix Rising in the Argyle Hotel on the Sunset Strip.