JAZZ REVIEWS : GATO BARBIERI’S FIERY PEAKS, COOL VALLEYS

Few things in music are as unmistakable, or as unchanging, as the tenor saxophone style of Leonardo (Gato) Barbieri. Saturday night at the Beverly Theatre, the diminutive Barbieri once again mined the rich, melodic Latin/jazz/funk vein that has been his artistic milieu for many years, and the energy, flair and emotion with which he worked made it a class performance.

Wearing blue pants and shirt, dark glasses and his ever-present black fedora, Barbieri would bend slightly backward and blow gleaming, grainy, intense tones while his distinguished New York-based band--Frank Ferrucci, piano; Lincoln Goines, bass, and Bernard Purdie, drums--created a heated, often torrid rhythmic platform that pushed the saxman to more effusive, passion-filled heights.

But whatever the tempo or level of intensity--and Purdie, perhaps the most musical jazz/funk drummer around, can make things delightfully intense--Barbieri never played fast flurries, sticking instead to stretched-out, thick notes or short statements, repeating them louder and louder to reach peaks, then dropping back to a soothing quiet for a refreshing contrast. From this soft point, he would again begin to build, and sometimes between phrases he shouted brief, punchy exclamations like “Hey! Ho! Ha!,” and on occasion sort of sang-talked in Spanish.

Melodic fragments rather than recognizable tunes often served as springboards to Barbieri’s improvisational lyricism, which alternately evokes beauty and sadness, but he did play complete versions of such favorites as “Last Tango in Paris,” “I Want You” and “What a Difference a Day Made.”