Joyful--If Not Perfect--Boys Choir Delights Crowd

A generous holiday entertainment drew a happy audience into Royce Hall at UCLA on a sunny Saturday afternoon when the Boys Choir of Harlem returned after an absence. As before, the 35 boys and young men of the touring ensemble, backed by an all-purpose jazzy quintet, moved with greater polish than they sang, though they do both exuberantly.

American boychoirs generally make sounds more raucous than their European and British counterparts, and that is an acceptable part of their showbizzy orientation. But an entire afternoon--and this was a long one--of raw vocalism, sometimes approaching the toneless near-yelling of public singing, can wear on the listener.

Still, led by its founder and conductor, Walter Turnbull, the young singers put on a good show, and a varied one. Its second half specialized in familiar pop songs, most of them associated with the holiday season--the show was called “A Christmas Offering”--yet it was eclectic in the overall.

Because of constant change and movement, the visual entertainment moved along consistently; even with some changes in style and mode, the aural part suffered from an unrelieved sameness. The opening set of classical Christmas carols, for instance, was not much different in sound from the pop holiday medley in the second half. And, because of loose intonation and undifferentiated tone, the musical success of Schubert’s Mass in G was compromised by a lack of contrasts and dynamics.

Nevertheless, an attractive military bearing from the boys, along with well-rehearsed staging and choreography--a lot of it admittedly cliched--gave the show a polish to which the enthusiastic audience could, and did, respond vociferously.