POP MUSIC REVIEW : Material, Sound Problems Bury Moore’s Vocal Power

Early in her show at the Henry Fonda Theatre on Thursday, pop-R&B; singer Chante Moore was faring better as a comedian than a singer. Backed into doing comedy by sound problems that kept her from doing songs, she turned the first part of her set into a laugh riot. Unfazed by the breakdowns, Moore, a chatterbox well-versed in hip lingo, cracked joke after joke.

Though it was sometimes hard to tell Thursday, Moore really can sing. Like Mariah Carey and the late Minnie Riperton, she can scale the heights of her upper register, delivering those spine-tingling high notes. But that’s just technical expertise. Moore can also be a vibrant, thrilling singer who can illuminate lyrics with heartfelt sincerity and glib phrasing, which she did on her best song, “As If We Never Met.”

But it wasn’t only technical problems that kept Moore from showing that talent at the Fonda. Nearly all her material, mostly from her 1992 debut album, “Precious,” is beneath her talents and her band, handcuffed by woefully pop-ish arrangements, did nothing more than weigh the material down with pedestrian pop trimmings. In person she showed she can sing with much more fire than on the album, but the arrangements--and the sound problems--kept dousing the flame.