JAZZ / DIRK SUTRO : Singer's Career Had Its Twists : Talent: Peggy Claire went from opera to rock to Saturday night jazz regular at St. James.

By DIRK SUTRO

Dec. 15, 1992 12 AM PT

SAN DIEGO — When Peggy Claire decided to become a singer 18 years ago, she didn’t seem headed for a career in jazz. Trained in opera as a teen-ager in New Orleans, Claire met a “Duane Allman-style” rock guitarist when she was 21 who inspired her to switch to another non-jazz direction.

“I decided I wanted to be a traveling minstrel,” recalled Claire, who has a standing Saturday night date singing classic jazz at the St. James Hotel in downtown San Diego. “I wanted to hook up with one or two acoustic guitar player-singers and travel around playing music on the streets. I wanted to taste what that reality was, and that’s exactly what I did.”

Claire hit the road in 1974 and ended up in San Diego. The ‘60s were four years gone, but the hippie spirit was still alive, and Claire hooked up with “two very talented singer-songwriter-guitar players” and took to the streets performing classic folk rock of the period.

“We played Balboa Park, all over Ocean Beach, traveled up and down California,” Claire said. “I started singing harmony and improvising with them, and I did that for about three years. I was a poet so I started writing songs, and I played my own music, mostly.

“I’m so glad I did it, because it taught me a lot. For one thing, it taught me how to perform, because we had to perform for our breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

From 1977 to 1980, Claire, who also plays guitar, led her own folk-blues band, Opaleye, playing places such as the now-defunct Beach Club and Le Chalet in Ocean Beach. But, in 1980, she discovered jazz.

“I could never find the right drummer for my folk-blues bands because I would write things but I couldn’t explain what I wanted,” she said, “Then I heard a Billie Holliday tape. I had never heard one before, and I said, ‘That’s the kind of band I want.’

“I put my guitar down and started (singing) ‘Body and Soul.’ Up until that time, I didn’t think I had anything to learn. I’m a natural-born singer, God gave me a good ear and a natural voice, but, once I started with jazz, boy, I tell you, I’m still working on it.”

Claire started singing jazz in San Diego clubs such as the now-defunct Crossroads in 1980, backed by top San Diego musicians including bassist Tom Azarello, pianist Joe Azarello and trumpeter Gary Pack.

She was in a club one night in 1982 when she first heard San Diego clarinet player Bobby Gordon.

“My mouth just fell open, I said, ‘That’s who I want to work with!.’ He said, ‘You sound just like my favorite singer, Lee Wiley.’ She’s a singer only people into traditional jazz would know, but she’s very famous in that world.”

Wiley, who died in 1975, sang with famous band leader Eddie Condon’s band beginning in 1939.

“I always thought Peggy sounded like Lee Wiley,” confirmed Gordon. “Lee was a jazz singer. She started as a pop singer, then she got Eddie’s attention because of the way she sang melody.”

Wringing maximum emotion from classic melodic lines by composers such as the Gershwins and Cole Porter is one of Claire’s strong suits too, although she also considers herself a strong improviser.

As a maturing jazz singer, Claire doesn’t pack the raw technical power of some of the great jazz divas, but she has an easy, warm way with the romantic ballads she favors. Among her admirers at the St. James are an increasing number of budding young jazz buffs.

“Up until the last few years, there’s just been a terrible problem with vocalists being ignored, edged out of the jazz scene,” Claire said. “That’s all changed now, what with Mr. (Harry) Connick and Natalie Cole. There’s a lot of young kids listening to swing. I’m meeting kids in the Gaslamp who are into (trumpeter-band leader-singer) Louis Prima and Cab Calloway. That music was the bridge to rock and roll, so this is fascinating.”

Claire was born in Truth or Consequences, N.M., and grew up in New Orleans, where her mother introduced her to the music of Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong and the Ink Spots.

“But I’m an old hippie,” Claire confessed. “I grew up with the great English rock bands, that was my passion, the blues of Eric Clapton, all the great blues bands.”

In San Diego, Claire’s jazz career hasn’t always unfolded smoothly.

In the past 10 years, she has been twice slowed by serious auto accidents; and in 1985, she recorded a demo with Gordon that didn’t yield a label deal. But she’s a stronger singer now and hopes to make a new demo with Gordon and a few other local players next year.

Outside jazz, Claire is studying part-time for a degree in Spanish literature at UC San Diego, where she also sings with a classical chamber chorale led by Phillip Larson.

Meanwhile, she sings jazz, accompanied by San Diego pianist Forrest Westbrook, every Saturday night from 9 until 12:30 in Jonathan’s Place at the St. James Hotel (830 6th Ave.). There’s no cover charge.

RIFFS: San Diego flutist Lori Bell and her longtime musical sidekick, pianist Dave Mackay, depart Monday for a two-week, 10-show visit to Hong Kong. The money is good, reports Bell, who says she will receive a decent daily wage even on days she doesn’t play. This is her first tour to Hong Kong. . . .

San Diego pop jazz band Reel to Real has replaced the touring Fattburger as featured band for tonight’s “Jazz Live” concert at San Diego City College. The show in the college’s theater on C Street starts at 8. . . .

Jazz harmonica player Hendrik Meurkens, whose three most recent releases are Brazilian-flavored, will be interviewed at 2 p.m. Friday on KSDS-FM (88.3). Meurkens is a graduate of the prestigious Berklee School of Music, undoubtedly one of the few harmonica players to come out of Berklee. . . .

Christmas jazz will be the focus of KSDS deejay Joe Kocherhans’ “Portrait In Jazz” program this Saturday from noon to 3.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

VALLE GOES ACOUSTIC

Thanks to a logistical snafu, San Diego guitarist Jaime Valle has retooled his sound.

Since the release of his CD “Round Midnight” last summer, Valle had been using mostly electric guitar in his many local club dates. Then he played Vallarta MusicFest Jazz ’92 in Puerto Vallarta the first week of November, and a promised amplifier never arrived. As a crowd of 5,000 looked on, Valle hesitantly took the stage without his usual electric power.

“I ended up playing everything on acoustic guitar right into the P.A. system, and the response was great,” Valle said. “The sound was warm. Then I came back to San Diego, and I’ve been using acoustic in all my jobs. Now I’m doing it with the intention of separating myself from other players in town.”

Valle plans to use mostly acoustic guitar on his next recording, which he plans to start making in March. As a result of contacts made in Puerto Vallarta, Valle may pull in notables, including flute player Dave Valentin, to help out.

Also because of connections made in Puerto Vallarta, Valle’s “Round Midnight” has gained distribution in Latin America and on the East Coast.

In San Diego, you can hear him with Equinox on Friday nights from 9 to 1:30 at Cafe Bravo (895 4th Ave.) in the Gaslamp Quarter downtown, and Saturday nights from 9 to 1, at U.S. Grant Hotel downtown. Valle also does duos with bassist Peter Skrbak on Wednesday evenings from 5 to 9 at Tutto Mare Restaurant (4365 Executive Drive) in the Golden Triangle.