Jazz : Soulful ‘Inner City’ Blues at Marla’s

The blues seemed to be on everyone’s mind Friday at Marla’s jazz supper club as singer Barbara Morrison and her invited friends--tenor saxophonists Plas Johnson, Teddy Edwards and Rickey Woodard, along with blues belter Jimmy Witherspoon--injected a soulful, finger-popping feeling into whatever was played.

The evening was the second of three consecutive nights billed as an “Inner City Jazz Party” at the Los Angeles establishment. Singers Morrison, Yvette Stewart, Cheryl Barnes and Stephanie Haynes appeared Thursday, and the Capp/Pierce Juggernaut big band--with a special reunion performance from vocalist Ernie Andrews, who had not sung with the group in some time--highlighted Saturday’s bill.

According to the club’s owner, actress Marla Gibbs, the event was both a financial and musical success. “I’d love to do it again,” she said Saturday.

Woodard, backed by pianist Randy Randolph’s trio, kicked off Friday’s show with a splendidly smoking version of “Song for My Father,” offering smooth, blues-based phrases with an expansive, occasionally raspy tone. He also got in a couple of tasty solo spots working behind the recently reviewed Morrison, whose passionate, strong-voiced blues and ballad renditions earned her a resounding ovation.

Johnson was a delight, standing slightly bent-kneed and issuing a tone as pleasing to the ear as silk is to the skin. His statements--bop-tinged and charged with blues essence--had spine, giving substance to the speedy items, like “Ease on Down the Road,” and the achingly slow ones too, such as the Gene Ammons classic, “Hittin’ the Jug.” Supported deftly by Cedric Lawson on piano, Richard Reid on bass and Johnny Kirkwood on drums, the tenorman closed with a heartfelt “There Is No Greater Love,” dedicated to bassist Alan Jackson, who died Thursday of cancer.

Two local legends, both age 67, closed the show. Witherspoon, his voice not its former humongous self, still found the requisite spirit to make classics like “Big Leg Woman” and “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” come roaring to life. Edwards, his sound round, his technique agile, cruised through “Sunday” and “Blue Bossa,” then got the audience shouting with “Georgia on My Mind,” where one dripping-with-emotion idea succeeded another.

The featured celebrants all took the stage for a climactic encore.