Pop Mannerisms Dull Wilson’s Luster

Wednesday night, for the second week in a row, Lexus Jazz at the Bowl showcased the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra with a female singer named Wilson. Last week the first name was Cassandra, this week it was Nancy. Yet despite the difference in vocal styles, the programming situations were strikingly similar.

Once again, it was the orchestra, opening the show with a kaleidoscopic set of full-spectrum big band pieces, that dominated the evening. And, once again, the vocal portion of the program left a great deal to be desired.

The orchestra’s program, assembled with a fine sense of musical pacing, was first-rate, touching many bases. The opening “Blues for Stephanie,” for example, originally composed by John Clayton for the Count Basie Orchestra, underscored the Clayton-Hamilton group’s elemental ability to swing.

Co-leaders Jeff Hamilton and Jeff Clayton were then featured in consecutive numbers--Hamilton in a dancing, Fred Astaire-like display of brushwork in “Back Home Again in Indiana,” Clayton in a sensual, late-night alto saxophone theme, “Again and Again,” composed for him by legendary composer-saxophonist-trumpeter Benny Carter.

“What a Wonderful World,” the upbeat, optimistic song recorded by Louis Armstrong in the late ‘60s, was performed with a touching sound clip from Satchmo, and “Reverence” celebrated the music of Lester Young with an extended, unison saxophone-section passage simulating the Young style.

So far, so good. Then, however, the program took a sudden turn in a completely different direction, as the Rev. O.C. Smith, actor Samuel L. Jackson and others came on stage to praise Nancy Wilson and present her with an award for her National Public Radio show “Jazz Profiles.” After the intermission, Wilson returned, accompanied by her trio, to offer a fairlyextended program of songs, including her trademark rendering of “Guess Who I SawToday.”

But Wilson, whose work in the ‘60s with George Shearing and Cannonball Adderley revealed a promising jazz talent, delivered a program in the style of a highly mannered pop singer.

Although her phrasing still retains elements of swing, she undercut whatever rhythmic lift her singing might have had by employing an audio technique--waving her microphone back and forth in front of her mouth--that was at best annoyingly intrusive. At worst, it produced wavelike phrases sounding for all the world like glitches in the sound system.

Nor did she help her interpretations (even in a segment in which she was accompanied superbly by the orchestra) by varying her dynamic range between inaudible whispers and overpowering shouts and yodels, constantly interrupting the emotional flow of her singing.

It’s obvious that Wilson, at the very least, has a powerful understanding of jazz, but at the moment it is largely buried beneath too many layers of mannerisms and attitude.