Oscar Brown Jr. Finds Wisdom, Rhythm in Age

Every time Oscar Brown Jr. shows up in Los Angeles to deliver one of his inspired performances, I’m mystified about why he does not receive wider recognition. On Wednesday, in the kickoff set of a five-night run at the Jazz Bakery, he came up with yet another evening filled with wit, humor and tenderness underscored by the empathetic, briskly swinging piano work of Billy Childs.

In a Bakery booking two years ago, Brown devoted his set to the rhymes and rhythms of his native Chicago. This time he concentrated on age, noting at one point that he was celebrating his 75th birthday and adding, “Actually, I’m not so much celebrating it as I am grimly observing it.”

Fans of the veteran singer-poet, who was garbed in a rainbow of youthful colors, know that--his protestations to the contrary--Brown may be getting older, but he’ll never be old. And what he offered in material cunningly clustered within the concept of aging was wisdom and insight surrounded by the aliveness of jazz rhythms--a metaphor for who he is as an ever-youthful artist.

After opening with a pair of New Year tunes, he dug into his own set of lyrics to Thelonious Monk’s “‘Round Midnight,” pausing in the middle to insert some lines from his own anthem to aging, “This Beach.” A series of Charlie Parker lines followed: “Now’s the Time,” “Billie’s Bounce” and “Barbados.”

“Now’s the Time” captured the groove of the original blues as well as the opening passages of Parker’s classic solo; Childs’ set of choruses, driven by a left-hand walking bass line, added precisely the right surge of rhythmic contrast. Brown transformed “Billie’s Bounce” into a tribute to a lady named Billie, whose 150 pounds were “concentrated right where it counts.” And “Barbados,” titled “Badjian Isle” in the Brown version, emerges as an “island of sunny fun and moonlight romance.”

Equally delightful items followed: “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be” (continuing the theme of the evening) and Brown’s classic “Signifyin’ Monkey.” He persuaded the enthusiastic audience to sing the chorus to a song pointing the finger at individual and societal hypocrisy.

In his most touching acknowledgment of the complexities of aging, he added a single tune that was not his: Jacques Brel’s lovely “La Chanson des Vieux Amants” (The Song of Old Lovers), sung by Brown with a deep understanding of the song’s blending of compassion, pain and survival.

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Oscar Brown Jr. with Billy Childs at the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City. Tonight through Sunday at 8 and 9:30 p.m. $22. (310) 271-9039.