Freda Payne returns to Catalina with a tribute to the women who built the songbook

There is a particular kind of Los Angeles evening that only happens in a room small enough to hear the band breathe. Catalina Jazz Club on Sunset has been staging them for decades. On Saturday, September 26, it hosts one of the few artists in American music who can credibly claim to have shared stages, studios and mentors with the very women she is about to honor.

Freda Payne returns to Catalina with an all-new show, Legendary Ladies of Jazz, presented by Don B. Welch Productions. The premise is simple and the execution is not: one evening spent inside the catalogs of Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Dakota Staton, Gloria Lynne, Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald.

Why she is the right person to do this

Most tribute shows are acts of admiration from a distance. This one is closer to memoir.

Payne was identified as a talent at thirteen by Berry Gordy, years before Motown became shorthand for an era. Quincy Jones produced her first jazz album in 1963, After the Lights Go Down Low and Much More, when she was barely out of her teens. She spent formative years on the road with Duke Ellington, Pearl Bailey and Lionel Hampton — an apprenticeship that no conservatory has ever managed to replicate.

The wider public knows her, inevitably, for Band of Gold, the 1970 record that became one of the defining vocal performances of its decade and earned her a Grammy nomination. What the hit tends to obscure is that the jazz career came first and never stopped. Her Broadway credits include Jelly's Last Jam, Sophisticated Ladies and Blues in the Night. She has continued to work steadily, recently appearing as a featured guest on Jeff Goldblum's jazz release and turning up on late-night television.

She is not interpreting a tradition she studied. She is singing songs she learned in the rooms where they were made.

The room and the company

Catalina has long functioned as an insider venue in a city that does not lack for stages. Payne's nights there have historically drawn a particular crowd — Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, Thelma Houston and the late Quincy Jones have all turned up over the years, which tells you something about how she is regarded by people who have no obligation to be impressed.

For this show, Payne's son, Gregory Abbott Jr., hosts — born on his mother's birthday in 1977, during her marriage to singer Gregory Abbott, and a rare public appearance alongside her. Thomasina Gross appears as special guest with a segment devoted to Eartha Kitt. Musical direction comes from Josh Nelson, leading a five-piece band.

The venue is billing it as more theatrical event than concert, and the structure supports that reading: eight distinct vocal personalities, staged across an evening, held together by a performer who can move between them without impersonating any of them.

Practical notes

Doors open at 7pm with dinner service, and the show begins at 8:30. The evening is all ages. Tickets run from roughly $62 to $72, available through the venue and through TicketWeb. Payne has historically stayed after her Catalina performances for signings and photographs, and books and recordings are typically available at the show.

A single night, eight catalogs, and a singer who was in the room for a great deal of it. Hollywood does not offer many evenings like this anymore. It is worth showing up for.