Pops' maestro plays jazz in flashy style at Kimmel

It's not unheard of for conductors, such as André Previn, to sideline as jazz pianists. Peter Nero, founding director of the Philly Pops, does it as well.

Nero's jazz concerts, however, are infrequent here in town. But on Thursday at the Kimmel Center, he and bassist Michael Barnett galloped through assorted repertoire, jazz and otherwise, in an evening billed as "Isn't It Grand!"

"Grand" is not a term in wide use among jazz musicians, and it was the first sign of an ersatz quality in the proceedings.

Nero's love for the idiom, of course, couldn't be clearer, and it's hard to fault his touch, tone production and technical facility, all bespeaking a high level of achievement.

But jazz is an elusive thing, an alignment of rhythm and harmony to produce "swing" - not a style, but a kind of metaphysics, exacting and yet somehow effortless. Funk is like this, too.

Nero's jazz can be compared to his shoes: patent leather, flashy, impressive on the surface. His ornate arpeggios and filigreed runs nodded in the direction of Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, but there was too little breath, too much stiffness in his eighth-note lines.

Jazz bassists tend to prefer a natural, woodlike sound. Barnett played an electric upright through a big guitar amplifier. Still, his tone was surprisingly good, his solos well put together.

The duo led off with Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are" and Ann Ronell's "Willow Weep for Me." Later, they ventured a Duke Ellington medley. The songs were packed with knowing chord substitutions - the right stuff, in a sense, but commonplace and over-orchestrated.

Two selections, "Phantom Phantasy" and the

West Side Story

melange that took up most of the concert's second half, were essentially piano reductions of Pops scores. Nero introduced the first with folksy self-effacement: "If you enjoy the music of

Phantom of the Opera

, this will cure you for all time."

Hearing "I Feel Pretty" as a bluesy jazz waltz had its pleasures. But after Nero's florid sequence, and the standing ovation that followed, one longed to revisit

Somewhere

, Bill Charlap's 2004 Blue Note release, a more satisfying and state-of-the-art take on Leonard Bernstein.