Pink Martini

“Hey Eugene”
from the album Hey Eugene!
2007
iTunes

MP3 – “Hey Eugene” [right-click/save-as]

“When the band first started I was wearing cocktail dresses and we were playing ‘I Dream of Jeannie.’ ” Thomas M. Lauderdale, the founder of Pink Martini, offered that reminiscence on Wednesday night while surveying a full house at Carnegie Hall. As he must have expected, the line got a knowing laugh, followed by a round of applause.

Pink Martini, a canny pop orchestra based in Portland, Ore., has grown in size and stature since the mid-1990s, when its core consisted of four musicians instead of the current 12. The group’s first two albums, released on its own Heinz label, have together sold more than a million copies worldwide. Its third — another self-release, Hey Eugene! — enjoyed a triumphant debut last month, entering Amazon’s bestseller list at No. 1. (Last week it was still in the Top 30.)

But Mr. Lauderdale wasn’t merely riffing on his band’s skyrocketing success. He was also describing an aesthetic — jet set, vintage-chic, more than a little campy — that lives on in the Pink Martini of today. While the “I Dream of Jeannie” theme was thankfully absent from the concert, there were songs that struck a similar nerve, like “Brazil.” (Customers who bought that item also bought “Que Sera Sera” and a new original called “Everywhere.”)

China Forbes, Pink Martini’s lead singer and chief songwriter, has a clear and precise instrument, the perfect voice to convey a cosmopolitan air. Her great asset is versatility, which she expresses in much the same manner as a United Nations emissary. When she sang in French, she put a shudder in her vibrato, channeling Edith Piaf; when she sang in Japanese, she adopted a coquettish and whispery tone. Tackling Arabic on one song, she managed a series of quavering microtones without sounding like a parodist.

Noirlike melodrama flatters Ms. Forbes, too: on “City of Night,” one of many songs she has written with Mr. Lauderdale, she delivered the melody as a clarion call. Her most commanding performance was on “Amado Mio,” a cha-cha with cinematic pedigree. (It appeared in the Rita Hayworth film “Gilda.”) Still, she was no match for Jimmy Scott, the venerable master of the torch song: Their duet rendition of “Tea for Two” was a one-sided affair, even with Mr. Scott squinting to read his lyrics off the page.

Mr. Scott functioned not only as a special guest but also as a cultural allusion, alongside Maurice Ravel, whose music cropped up twice in the concert, and Gene Krupa, whose trademark tom-tom rumble undergirded an instrumental called “The Flying Squirrel.” With meticulous arrangements for percussion, horns and strings — and of course, Mr. Lauderdale, leading from the piano with Liberace-like flair — Pink Martini generally suggested an alternate pop universe untouched by the influence of rock ‘n’ roll or R&B.

One prominent exception was the title track “Hey Eugene,“ a picaresque tale set in an East Village bar, it featured some superficially soulful horn parts and background vocals by Tracey Harris. The audience greeted this anomaly with the sort of wondrous glee that Ms. Forbes had proposed in an earlier song.

“Everywhere I go, I see/A world designed for you and me,” she cooed in “Everywhere,” surrounded by a gossamer cocoon of harp and strings. The sparkle of that fantasy, even more than musicianship or internationalism, just might be the secret to Pink Martini’s success.