TV REVIEW : Wide World of A Cappella

Two things are immediately striking as hosts Spike Lee and Debbie Allen roam the streets of New York in search of perfect four-part and six-part and 12-part harmony in “Spike & Co.: Do It A Cappella,” the premiere installment of the 18th season of PBS’ “Great Performances” series (tonight at 9 on Channels 28, 15 and 24; 9 p.m. Saturday on Channel 50).

The first is how wide-ranging the world of a cappella is today: Clearly, it’s not just the habitat of oldies (the Persuasions), clever novelty songs (Rockapella) or African ethnomusicology (Ladysmith Black Mambazo), as popularly perceived, but still a vital strain in such ongoing black music traditions as gospel (Take 6) and even thoroughly modern R&B; (the Mint Juleps, True Image).

The second striking thing is what a cornball kind of guy Spike Lee turns out to be.

As he and Allen don their fur caps in the New York winter and head out on this urban excursion, their teasing patter is forced enough--she keeps talking about how she’d like to do a love scene with Lee--that they begin to seem like a pair of presenters on the Emmy Awards, incongruously and uncomfortably thrown together at the last minute.

Happily, though, they and director Ernest Dickerson (Lee’s cinematographer) soon lay off the cute stuff, with intermittent lapses, and let the music do the talking. Early on, Lee and Allen “discover” a cappella groups rehearsing or facing off in a Brooklyn Masonic temple; though the performances are obviously lip-synced, the charm survives. The second half of the hour features a live concert in which acts sometimes pair up, such as an inspired matching of England’s all-female Mint Juleps with South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo doing backing vocals on “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

Even viewers with a bias against a cappella might find the sheer variety of styles on hand here winning. Additionally, a fine soundtrack album and a longer home video version of the show are being released by Elektra Records.