By Jon Bream

It was Lesley Gore's party so she could do jazz if she wanted to. And cheesy pop covers. She did her hits, too, which is what mattered most to the crowd at the Dakota Jazz Club on Monday night.

The petite New Yorker filled the club with her outgoing personality, her tales of teen stardom before the British Invasion and that still-girlish voice. She was less effective when she essayed her own adult-pop pieces, jazz pieces associated with Jobim or pop hits by Bryan Adams and Coldplay that she tried to transform into jazzy art. That brought too much of a cheesy suburban supper-club feel to the 75-minute late set. Still, it was an entertaining evening, thanks to her personal stories about producer Quincy Jones and about finding her own post-Beatles identity and her spontaneous exchange with a fan who was singing the wrong backup vocal line to "She's a Fool" ("Tam-a-do-la? It's shack-a-do-la. Tam-a-do-la -- I'm going to call Darlene Love and give her that one."). It was cute when Gore created jazzy vocal intros to the hopelessly bubblegum "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" and the inevitable "It's My Party." The '60s oldies were a treat even if her three musicians seemed to be dumbing down their chops for this rudimentary pop. Hearing the 1964 smash "You Don't Own Me" – which sounded so Phil Spector even with just three musicians and no backup vocals – resonate as an eternal feminist anthem was the peak of Gore's groovy party.