Paula West

Paula

The Plush Room, San Francisco
January 23 - April 1

paulawestcd
Restless (1999)

Temptation (1998)

    Paula West is a jazz singer whose choice of materials and intelligent way with lyrics allow her to cross over to cabaret. She offers multiple pleasures - the musicianship and sophistication of jazz combined with the emphasis on text, the droll humor, and the story songs that appeal to the cabaret audience.
    Her fans were out in force for the sold-out opening night of West's current gig at San Francisco's Plush Room. Accompanied by her arranger, Ken Muir, at the piano and Jay Leonhart on the bass, she rolled out a generous program of thirteen songs and two encores. West likes to turn up forgotten songs from old shows and movies; she finds extraordinary quality in this neglected material.
    From a World War II Broadway musical, "Follow the Girls," West mines "I Want to Get Married." A genuinely funny number, she has great fun with its bawdy lines. But West never compromises the music for the words or the laughs: she finds just the right balance between the content and the music. Her alto voice has a smoky texture; she can reach way down for powerful chest tones or spin out wondrously soft and long lines at the higher end of her range. Add impressive breath control and impeccable phrasing and the sum total is nothing less than virtuoso performing.
    A Frank Loesser/Hoagy Carmichael novelty, "Small Fry" provides an opportunity for West to dialogue with the bass - Jay Leonhart may be the only bass fiddler around who can keep an audience laughing without saying a word. Sammy Kahn/James Van Heusen's "I Like to Lead When I Dance," written for Frank Sinatra and cut from the 1964 film, Robin and the Seven Hoods, is wonderfully sly, a man telling his confident woman that he likes to be in charge ("You're the charmer who could bend my armor...I like to lead; I set the speed.") West points out that for a woman to sing it requires a bit of gender-bending, but the result is to throw the masculine/feminine role-playing theme into sharper perspective. When she also does "All My Tomorrows" and "Tender Trap," there's no question listening to her that Sinatra has been an influence - and, one might guess, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, and Peggy Lee as well.
    Even when she tackles well-known standards - a slow and perfectly phrased "Star Dust" or (by audience demand, as an encore) "Fly Me to the Moon" - West brings a fresh sound and her own canny perspective to her performance. She's totally convincing in Antonio Carlos Jobim's serious and sad love song, "Once I Loved," and amazing Billy Strayhorn's serious and sad ballad, "Lush Life." And all her skills with words, articulation, and voice come into play in Cole Porter's "Can-Can," which earned the biggest audience response of the evening. (Who remembered that there were so many funny lines in that one? "If an ass in Astrakhan can... If in Lesbos, a pure Lesbian can?")
    Ken Muir's piano is subtle, expressive, spare - a sure touch that makes understatement a virtue, that values the spaces between the notes, too. He's an ideal accompanist for the well-paced, polished performance delivered by Miss West.