JAZZ REVIEW : Rodney Quintet at Enlarged Catalina’s

The newly enlarged Catalina’s Bar & Grill, where 40 additional seats now enable most viewers to face the bandstand instead of peering around corners, played host Thursday evening to the newly revised Red Rodney Quintet.

Actually the veteran bop trumpeter has made only one change: It was the first night for his drummer, Paul Kreibich, who has fit into the group’s dynamic pattern as easily as if it were a contour chair.

The other members are thoroughly familiar with the charts. Dick Oatts, who worked his way up the saxophone ladder from tenor to alto to soprano during the set heard, has been a fiery and compatible partner for three years; bassist Jay Anderson joined up eight years ago, and Rodney’s colleague of 10 years, Garry Dial, has become an invaluable left- and right-hand man as pianist and composer.

Rodney’s appearance was billed as a salute to Charlie Parker; in fact, Mike Zelnicker, who plays Rodney in the film “Bird,” was in the house opening night, but only one bop tune from the Bird era, Miles Davis’ “Little Willie Leaps,” was heard during the first set. There was an abundance of post-Parker energy and a sense of renovation, due in part to Dial’s writing and to the fact that Rodney, Oatts and Dial are all improvisers for whom the spirit of Parker lives but the time is indubitably today.

Rodney’s implacable lines, his sense of time and his melodic creativity have never been more impressively displayed. Whether on trumpet or fluegelhorn, on a straight ballad (“Every Time We Say Goodbye”), in a traditional mood (“Greensleeves”) or updating Coltrane with a “Giant Steps” that swung back and forth between a fast waltz and 4/4 time, he was in total control. With Anderson and Kreibich keeping the rhythmic level high, such tunes as Dial’s “How Do You Know?” and Bobby Shew’s “The Red Snapper” came vividly to life.

Rodney and company will be on hand through Sunday. He and Garry Dial can be seen Sunday at 8 on Ben Sidran’s “New Visions” interview and music show on the cable channel VH-1.