Lewis’ Skills Rise Above His Pop Successes

There long has been an unfortunate tendency in the jazz community to undervalue the work of veteran jazz pianists such as Ahmad Jamal, Gene Harris and Ramsey Lewis, largely because of their great popularity. Success may not have exactly bred contempt, but it certainly has generated a sense, in some observers, that their music is narrowly framed by the limits of their hit songs.

Lewis, for example, had Top 40 hits with “The ‘In’ Crowd” and “Hang on Sloopy,” among others. But--like Jamal and Harris--he has always been far more than a pop jazz pianist. And his performance at the opening event in KTWV-FM’s Smooth Jazz Series at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts Sunday night was a convincing illustration of how much more expansive his creative skills really are.

His opening number was a highly idiosyncratic rendering of the “Nessun dorma” aria from Puccini’s “Turandot”--originally planned as an inclusion, Lewis noted, “in an album of operatic arias that eventually became an album of arias, blues and gospel.” Aided immensely--here and throughout the program--by the superb bass playing (especially his bowed work) of Larry Gray, Lewis offered a multifaceted interpretation. Partially true to the spirit of the original, it also sprinkled in passages dominated by Lewis’ characteristically two-handed piano style.

On “My Foolish Heart,” he took a somewhat different route, generating drifting clouds of Impressionistic harmonies; interacting spontaneously with Gray, he created a gorgeously lush setting before allowing the melody to make its entrance. His “Moment Spiritual” was pure gospel elation, harking back to his childhood roots as a church pianist. And drummer Ernie Adams, in an expansive solo, was a revelation, his imaginative use of brushes the work of a player who fully comprehends the musical aspects of percussion.

Lewis could hardly avoid closing with “The ‘In’ Crowd,” drawing a predictably boisterous reaction from the full-house crowd. And he did not hesitate, in many of the previous pieces, to toss in touches--quotes from other songs, bombastic chords, snappy interplay with his trio--that he knew would please his listeners. But those crafty commercial considerations did not diminish the balance of his performance, which was the work of an appealing and intelligent musical artist.