POP REVIEW : Grey Matter Mostly Missing in Joel’s Performance

COSTA MESA —  They were all there Friday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center: Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante and George M. Cohan. But where was Joel Grey?

Backed by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Grey’s one-man musical show neatly capsulized his career and paid tribute to a few of his heroes in whirlwind fashion. So much was packed into his medley-heavy, one-hour appearance that there was little opportunity to sit back and enjoy Grey on his own terms. It seems he was always being someone else.

Step into Grey’s world, and you enter a place populated with the legends of the American songbook. It’s a place where memories arrive in snippets of songs, where such simple props as a hat and cane, coupled with a few swirling dance steps, can call up a vision of entire stage sets; a place where there’s always a musical lesson or two. As the vehicle for this magic, Grey was authoritative and engaging while leading the audience through segues with wit and exuberance, much as he did as the master of ceremonies in “Cabaret.” When he took the time, as he did acting out the bit where he prepares for his “Cabaret” role at an imaginary makeup table, he could be positively transporting.

But little of the evening’s music was delivered straight. Instead, Grey swirled and mugged and mimicked his way through a host of medleys. With the orchestra vamping “New York, New York” behind him, he discussed the purpose of such lead-ins before jumping into a number of songs utilizing what he called, “the all-purpose vamp, the Pillsbury of vamps: ‘I Got Rhythm.’ ”

He did a medley of Irving Berlin tunes--”Blue Skies,” “How Deep Is the Ocean? (How High Is the Sky?),” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”--that skipped from number to number like a badly scratched record. With a variety of hats, accents and facial expressions, he paid tribute to Cantor, Jolson and Cohan. For Durante’s “Inka Dinka Doo,” he donned a plastic schnozzola. Finally, at the end of the program, Grey himself came into view while singing a sincere, uncluttered version of “For All We Know.” Though he delivered the tune with occasional theatrical or conversational phrases, which served to cover a lack of range in the high-end, the performance was the evening’s most moving. More of the same would also relax the pace of the show.

Though the number of medley arrangements was tedious, all were witty, well-constructed affairs, performed with zest by Grey’s conductor, Frank Fiore (who also did time at the piano), and the orchestra. Grey expressed amazement from the stage that the symphony handled the complicated pieces so well after a single 1 1/2-hour rehearsal.

The orchestra, under the direction of Richard Kaufman, opened the evening with a selection of movie and 20th-Century orchestral music, played mostly with assertive intent and, when called for, transparent delicacy. Its best effort came on the overture to “Around the World in 80 Days,” given a crisp, buoyant reading filled with clean, airy string passages. Erik-Lars Larsson’s impressionistic suite, “A Winter’s Tale,” with its cool scenery and passages of icy detachment, was also given satisfying treatment.

Less successful was the presentation of music from Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack to the 1978 science-fiction thriller “Capricorn One.” With its less-melodic, more angularly percussive sensibilities, the piece presented the orchestra with some difficult footing. Still, its inclusion on the program should be applauded as an ambitious attempt to bring to light an otherwise overlooked piece of decidedly-modern music.

The program was repeated Saturday night.