Pop and Jazz Reviews : Hale Group Needs to Get Its Act Together

“Can you imagine how this group would sound if we’d had a rehearsal?” Corky Hale asked her audience Wednesday at Lunaria’s. And that was the problem--or the pleasure, depending on one’s view.

Hale, who has turned from music to other pursuits, such as producing motion pictures, performs only a couple of times a year. For this occasion she hired members of the jazz group that plays Sunday mornings at the Science of Mind Church of the Rev. O. C. Smith.

The approach to this gig was casual in the extreme. Judged as a private party at her home for a bunch of friends, it would have been beyond reproach. But as a public performance, with its what-shall-we-play-next attitude, and with Hale forgetting the lyrics on her one vocal, it left something to be desired.

Hale tended toward floridity during her piano solos, and even during the excellent violin improvisations by Mark Cargill. The versatile Rafael Murphy doubled impressively on vibes and flute.

Predictably, when Hale played harp, the first show was most satisfactory. She is still the most harmonically sensitive and most jazz-oriented exponent of this impossibly difficult instrument. But next time around, how about a rehearsal?