Onstage synergy

Normally, two plus two equals four.

But if you add two quality performers together -- singer Nancy Wilson and jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis -- well, the result is greater than the sum of its parts.

Or, as Ramsey Lewis likes to put it: "I think that when one (great) artist collaborates with another, they resonate with each other. Two people can equal five or six or seven or eight, because of what they bring to the table. We enhance or embellish what each other brings to the song or work of music. The music becomes bigger than the two of us. I guess it's immeasurable."

Ramsey and Wilson will perform together at 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 24 at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts.

Both performers are well known on their own. Grammy Award-winning singer Nancy Wilson has recorded more than 60 albums and received an Emmy for her NBC series, "The Nancy Wilson Show," which ran during the '60s.

In 1964 she was Capitol Records' highest-selling female artist and second-highest selling performer, outsold only by The Beatles. A jazz and R&B singer, she's hosted the NPR program "Jazz Profiles." In 1991 she released "With My Lover Beside Me," a collaboration with Barry Manilow in which Manilow wrote music to accompany lyrics by Johnny Mercer.

Pianist Ramsey Lewis ruled the radio airwaves in 1965 with his soulful crossover hit "The In Crowd." It hit No. 5 on the Billboard charts, rubbing shoulders with songs by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. A three-time Grammy Award-winner, he's also known for "Hang on Sloopy" and "Wade In the Water." He hosts "Legends of Jazz," BET's "Jazz Central" and a morning show on WNUA. He's also the artistic director of jazz at Chicago's Ravinia.

The two performers have "known each other forever," according to Wilson. Friends since the '60s, they had the same manager, John Levy, and have shared the same stage before, but performed sequentially. "We've done many concerts before, but rarely have we entwined the shows," Wilson says. "Many times he's opened, there'd be an intermission, and then I'd come out."

	IF YOU GO
	Nancy Wilson and Ramsey Lewis in concert When: 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 24 Where: The Philharmonic Center for the Arts, 5388 Pelican Bay Blvd. Tickets: $55 Information: 597-1900

"With these shows, we open together, we close together," Wilson says. "It's cohesive."

The two have collaborated on three different albums: "The Two of Us" in 1984, then "Meant to Be" in 2002. This year, they released "Simple Pleasures," an offering of pop, R&B, jazz, standards and original Lewis compositions. Lewis plays an interpretation of War's "Slipping Into Darkness" and "In My Life" by The Beatles. And Wilson provides renderings of DeBarge's "All This Love" and "God Bless the Child."

Wilson says she wasn't intimidated by performing a song so connected to Billie Holiday.

"That's the thing, the songs belong to everybody," she says. "You take it and give it your own interpretation. I wasn't thinking of anybody else. I've been singing it since it came out, I just never recorded it. I thought I should, before I didn't record anymore. I thought it was one that I should sing."

She names Lewis' version of "Ooh Child" as one her favorites, referring to it as "the commercial thing that Ramsey did" when the title escapes her for a moment.

"I love that tune," she says, adding, "Ramsey's a delightful gentleman and a wonderful pianist. I really enjoy working with him."

And the feeling is obviously mutual, because Lewis says of Wilson: "She's the ultimate artist. She's pure professionalism, pure talent. She can draw from and work with any facet of it at any moment. She's very comfortable with herself, her art. She's a fine person to work with, be with."

The two picked songs they connected with personally, rather than thinking, "people will like this song, therefore I'm going to pick it," Lewis says. "(We'd ask,) do Nancy and I resonate with this song? How does it inspire me, or us? (Listeners) respond to the music, the melody, they respond to our interpretation, the feeling they get when we perform it. It's in the performance."

In earlier years, Wilson has collaborated with Barry Manilow, Cannonball Adderly and George Shearing.

And while she enjoys performing with Lewis and his trio, she's cutting down on touring and will, at some point, stop performing.

"I will retire soon," she says. "I haven't played a nightclub in almost two years. I love the nightclubs but they're just too hard, too expensive."

Does this mean Wilson will stop singing?

"I can always sing," she says. "That doesn't mean I'm going to perform, or work."

In January she'll release yet another album, called "RSVP: Rare Songs, Very Personal," with songs by Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, among others.

"They're nice, nice songs I've known all my life,' she says. "Songs you want to get in, so that I have a body of work of the songs that I like. I never recorded anything I did not like, but these are great songs, standards I haven't gotten around to." The tunes include "Goodbye," "Blame It On My Youth" and "An Older Man is Like an Elegant Wine."

But while compact discs capture songs for posterity, it's new magic every night when she and Lewis collaborate.

"We let everything fly," Lewis says. "Certain things happened on a song last night, but tonight it's a new ballgame. Every night, a clean slate of music. That's what jazz is about, the moment, creating in the moment. If you allow that to happen, there's a certain amount of electricity, a certain amount of anticipation that the audience can feel when the artists on stage are communicating with each other and taking chances. They don't know exactly what, but they know something wonderful is happening. They're drawn in. And they feel they're part of this communication, this collaboration. They don't realize they've contributed mightily. We feel the audience as we perform, their vibration, their warmth.

"If you do what you do to the best of your ability, you transmit a feeling to an audience."