Walking into the Winspear Opera House for the first time on the evening of November 4, my curiosity was high and my expectations low. I was curious to see what this highly-touted new venue was all about, but not expecting much from the two performers kicking off producer Larry Rosen’s Jazz Roots series in Dallas. After all, both pianist Ramsey Lewis and vocalist Al Jarreau have spent their careers on the periphery of jazz, where it meets pop, and their music has at various times veered dangerously close to “jazz light.”

As for the Opera House, it’s architecturally stunning, as all of us who’ve driven by on Woodall Rogers but haven’t been inside yet have surmised. It’s surprisingly intimate, and the sound quality was, on the whole, impressive.

The Ramsey Lewis Trio opened, and thus gave the first jazz performance in the new hall. Lewis has been recording since the mid-1950s and has had a couple of hits on the pop charts. The In Crowd, a catchy, funky little ditty in the vein of post-Miles Herbie Hancock and Les McCann, reached number two on the pop charts in 1965, while Sun Goddess, an R&B/fusion number recorded in conjunction with Earth, Wind & Fire about a decade later, was also quite popular in the discos of the day.

The trio exceeded my expectations from the get-go. A fine pianist, although not a great improviser, Lewis was accompanied by Larry Gray on bass and Leon Joyce, Jr. on drums. Their set was relaxed and comfortable rather than challenging. Playing all original material, Lewis displayed a very polished style that is always mindful of the jazz vernacular. A couple of the ballads were a little too lush for my taste, but the overall feeling was you were in the hands of seasoned professionals who were at ease with their material but never let that fact dampen their enthusiasm.

Bassist Gray was a revelation. I’m not given to hyperbole, but he was simply one of the best jazz bassists I’ve heard. His round, warm tone while playing under Lewis was propulsive, yet it was on the two or three solos he played that he really impressed. Sometimes plucking his strings, sometimes playing with a bow (a rarity for jazz musicians), Gray was wondrously lyrical, ranging from funky gospel sounds to classical influences – I thought I detected other influences as diverse as Asian music and Jewish violin music surfacing at times, as well. Drummer Joyce also contributed a couple of solos that were crisp, melodic and concise.

The high point of the evening occurred when the trio tackled a gospel-based original composition by Lewis that was really a sort of “suite”—several movements separated by Gray and Joyce solos. This must have been where Lewis decided to address the Jazz Roots theme of the concert, because hearing this piece was like being transported to church on Sunday morning, in the glory days of gospel music. The music was rollicking, the audience got involved, and with their shouts of encouragement to the band, the Winspear Opera House was “de-snootified” once and for all.

My only quibble with the sound qualities of the opera house lay in the fact that, during Lewis’ set, I heard less of the actual sound of the acoustic instruments being played and more of their sound amplified through the PA system. Given that every seat in the house seems to be relatively close to the stage, maybe in future concerts more of the natural sound could be allowed to carry. As it was, the amplified sound sacrificed a little of the warmth that one likes to hear from the acoustic piano, bass and drum kit of a traditional jazz trio.

Al Jarreau followed Lewis with a very different approach and a very different sound. Jarreau’s unique vocalization style, in which he imitates the sounds of jazz instrumentalists he admires, made quite a splash when he first began recording in the late 1970s. The height of his popularity, though, came in the mid 80s, when he recorded the theme song for the Moonlighting TV series (the show that made Bruce Willis a star). Jarreau’s set for the evening was a sort of “greatest hits” tour of his popular songs over the last three decades. Unfortunately, that entailed fronting a six-piece ensemble that relied way too heavily on a somewhat-cheesy, synthesizer-laden 80’s sound.

Jazz shows in Dallas are few and far between, so this evening was a treat and the Jazz Roots series will bring two more shows to town before April. Those of us who live here and love jazz will have to hope that the marvelous new opera house will serve to attract more national jazz acts to our town—and I hope some more adventurous ones.