ALL-STARS PLAYING JAZZ WITH A TIMELESS ACCENT

It’s tempting to dismiss the Timeless All-Stars as a bunch of be-bop has-beens who are trying to relive the past instead of expanding on it.

So tempting, in fact, that Curtis Fuller, Bobby Hutcherson, Cedar Walton, Billy Higgins, Harold Land and Buster Williams have had to live with that stigma from the time they first joined forces more than five years ago.

“Just the other night, some writer asked me if I was going to make be-bop runs,” trombonist Fuller said. “That’s such a ridiculous assumption, because my playing--and the playing of every musician in this group--has always been as avant garde as anyone’s.

“I don’t care if some of us might have bald heads. Does the fact that I wear a suit and tie make me an old man? Each time we play, we create new and different sounds--and that sets us apart from what be-bop is all about.”

Indeed, throughout their individual careers, the six aging sidemen of such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Art Blakey have distinguished themselves as dynamic innovators rather than followers.

Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, 46, played with the likes of Jackie McLean, Archie Shepp and Eric Dolphy during the early 1960s. In Downbeat magazine’s 1964 poll, he won the new “Star of the Year” award; two years later, Jazz magazine proclaimed him the best vibes player in the country.

Drummer Billy Higgins, 50, was a charter member of Ornette Coleman’s 1959-1960 group and later played with Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley and Lee Morgan.

Tenor saxophonist Harold Land, 58, pioneered his celebrated blues-colored style of playing with the legendary Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet in 1954.

Pianist Cedar Walton, 52, played with J.J. Johnson, Art Farmer and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers during the late 1950s and early ‘60s before forming his own quartet, with Sam Jones on bass.

Bassist Buster Williams, at 44 the youngest member of the Timeless All-Stars, got his start with the Gene Ammons-Sonny Stitt group and later backed Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan and Miles Davis. From 1969 until 1973 he performed with the Jazz Crusaders.

Fuller played with Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young and Gil Evans in the 1950s before joining Walton in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1961.

“When we started playing, we were the Magellans of jazz,” Fuller said. “We had to draw our own maps; we had to develop our own techniques, our own styles of playing.

“And just because we’re older now, that doesn’t mean we have stopped exploring or investigating. Like our name indicates, the music we play is timeless--and I wish that writers would stop trying to put us into time slots or categories.

“We use our instruments and our music to tell stories about our lives. Some of those stories are old, but others are new. And the people who come to our concerts are often surprised, because the media have led them to believe that, because we are a certain age, we must be playing a certain type of music.”

San Diego jazz fans can decide whether Fuller’s assessment of the Timeless All-Stars is accurate when the sextet performs tonight at the Lyceum Theatre in Horton Plaza.

Their appearance is the fourth in a series of jazz concerts in the 500-seat theater co-sponsored by the San Diego Jazz Festival and the San Diego Repertory Theatre.

The Timeless All-Stars, Fuller said, were assembled by Dutch promoter Wym Wight in 1981 to tour Europe as a means of promoting Wight’s label, Timeless Records.

That tour was so successful that Fuller and his five fellow musicians decided to make the union a permanent one. The Timeless All-Stars have since recorded a pair of albums for Timeless, “Live at the Keystone” in 1982 and “Timeless Heart” in 1983, and two more for other jazz labels.

“We all grew up as part of the same scene, but only recently has it become feasible--and affordable--for us to tour and record together,” Fuller said.

“And I tell you, it’s been a real challenge for everyone. Each person has his own message and when we get together there’s a meshing of styles that makes every concert we play an adventure--no matter what the critics might think.”