Reviews of Concerts in Boston and at Tufts

On Saturday night, legendary jazz vocalist Miss Nancy Wilson graced Tufts’ new Distler Performance Hall with a program that included many of her classic hits and personal favorites. Since 1956, Miss Wilson has recorded numerous albums, her most recent of which, Turned to Blue, won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

At age seventy, Miss Wilson still possesses a vibrant and spunky presence on stage. Both a singer and a storyteller, she tells personal anecdotes between numbers that create intimacy with her audience. All at once self-assured and coy, Miss Wilson exudes a bright enthusiasm and confidence that further amplify the power of her voice.

The concert opened with The Lance Bryant Quartet a terrific set of jazz songs, including Nancy Wilson’s own “The Very Thought of You,” performed in a soulful, lazy groove. Lance Bryant led the quartet on saxophone and voice, backed by the outstanding skills of Mulgrew Miller (piano), John Lockwood (bass), and Yoron Israel (drums). Especially notable for their unpredictable but precise transitions, the Quartet showed exceptional cohesiveness in its pace and tempo overall, and set an appropriate mood for Miss Wilson’s performance.

Miss Wilson regally entered the stage in a dramatic long silver gown. She had a statuesque quality about her that was immediately softened when she addressed the audience, explaining that she was going to “chit-chat” a while until the band finished setting up. Once they had, she transitioned smoothly into Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” which set a swanky mood for her opening number and showed off her sassier side. Her voice displayed a clear, bright, full grain that reached the extremes of throaty grit and hushed airiness while maintaining clear articulation and precise pitch.

The songs she performed focused mostly on the themes of love, strength, and nostalgia. She seemed to enjoy especially Duke Ellington’s “Take Love Easy,” savoring the beat with the extra swing in her step and her expressive arm motions. And during the instrumental solos, she playfully mimicked the motions of the band members playing. She both started and ended the song in jovial laughter with her pianist, Llew Matthews.

She followed “Take Love Easy” with John Proulx’s “These Golden Years,” a song from her new album written especially for her. The song, as she explained, was intensely personal and she could only perform it in the right spirit and emotion. As in many other numbers, her voice seemed to communicate a depth of wisdom gained from her life. There was a maturity in her words and phrasings that spoke from experience. Yet, Miss Wilson has unflagging verve and spice, always adding new zest to her old standards, while maintaining her youthful and crisp voice, as she did in her performance of Murray Grand’s “Guess Who I Saw Today,” off her 1950 album, Something Wonderful. In keeping with her cool attitude, Miss Wilson finished her last number, Gershwin’s classic, “How Long has this Been Going On?” and with an elegant wave, sauntered gracefully offstage. The audience barely had time to rise in ovation before she had left the stage and the band continued to play until she reentered for an encore.

It was pleasing to hear Miss Wilson compliment Distler Hall, remarking that it had the same intimacy she remembers from her club and cabaret days and had all the gear of the big venues she is used to nowadays. The audience no doubt appreciated the hall’s excellent acoustics; every member of both ensembles could be specifically heard but still blended beautifully as a whole.

The long time band members showed great chemistry with Miss Wilson. When describing her relationship with the band, she effused that she never went anywhere without them and fondly added “They travel well.” Band members Roy McCurdy (drums), Llew Matthews (piano), and Luther Hughes (bass) responded terrifically to Miss Wilson in both personal and musical characters. She and Roy McCurdy have worked together 27 years since the days they performed with jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and she reminisced fondly with him about several fun times they shared.

Miss Wilson announced the upcoming release of an album paying tribute to Cannonball Adderley, who was a close friend of hers and helped launch her career. Several artists will be included in the collection, but as Miss Wilson quipped, “You can’t pay tribute to Cannon without me!”