A heartfelt, and tuneful, tribute

August 16, 2007|Kevin Lowenthal, Globe Correspondent

Every year since 1986, pianist, composer, and educator Ran Blake has taught a Summer Intensive course at NEC focusing on a different musician. Past courses have spotlighted likely suspects Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus, as well as worthy if less obvious ones such as Abbey Lincoln. This year's choice was of the latter sort: singer Chris Connor.

Connor is, indeed, a beguiling artist. It begins with her smoky, affecting voice. The title of a 1999 CD anthology of her 1956-63 stint with Atlantic Records, "Warm Cool," hints at her many contradictions: distant yet intimate, restrained yet emotional, tense yet relaxed. Her phrasing can be extremely eccentric, yet somehow ends up sounding as natural as breathing. And though her repertoire is mostly drawn from the American Songbook, in 1962 she recorded a version of free-jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman."

Much of Tuesday's concert open to the public was spent listening to Connor's classic recordings, interspersed with reminiscences, illuminating appreciations, and musical performances. There was even a live phone call to Connor in her New York apartment to wish her a happy 80th birthday.

The live performances ranged from highly accomplished to charmingly amateurish. Standouts included James Merenda's searching saxophone interpretation of "The Thrill Is Gone"; vocalist Buzz Brooks's version of "Misty," rewritten as a comic tribute to Connor; and Prudence Steiner's dramatic reading of Scott Sandvik's poem about Connor, "That VOICE!"

Though Blake remained offstage, his sensibility permeated the proceedings. For instance, pianist Kevin Harris's spare rendition of Connor's first hit, "All About Ronnie," contained snippets of Bernard Herrmann's title theme for Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo," a favorite Blake reference. (It also alluded to the young Connor's resemblance to the haunted, blond beauty of that film's star, Kim Novak.)

If Blake was the evening's director, Connor was clearly the star. It's rare that a concert's highlights come prerecorded, but that was the case here. And a remarkable video of Connor's 1995 performance with a big band at Quinnipiac University showed her talents not just undiminished but deepened by time.

If anyone had arrived doubting Blake's thesis that Connor should be recognized as a great jazz musician, few left unconvinced.