JAZZ REVIEW : Owen Skips Jazz Heritage, but Fans Love Him Madly

Several months ago in San Diego, a high-profile panel discussion over the scope and meaning of the word jazz nearly came to hockey-style confrontations over use of the term to include a variety of formats that stand at odds to the blues, ballad and bop traditions at the heart of mainstream jazz.

Saturday night at Saddleback College’s McKinney Theater, that debate was still alive. Sandy Owen, a pianist of considerable talent, played before a sold-out audience deeply appreciative of his musical taste and skill. He was accompanied by Paul Carman on soprano and tenor saxophones and by Donna Thomas on percussion instruments.

Owen’s concert explored 17 compositions, all but one written by him. The night was divided among solo, duo and trio performances and shared its mellow outlook for a generous 2 hours.

Owen showed himself to be an engaging conversationalist, with much of the charm of the event derived from his laid-back monologue between numbers. In that regard, he is a musician in the tradition of George Shearing; his playing, like Shearing’s, is an extension of a civilized give-and-take between a performer and his listeners.

Perhaps at that point the comparison with Shearing and the jazz tradition stops. On one hand, Owen deserves admiration for his determination, as a composer, to establish his own vision and for his refusal (on this night, anyway) to display interest in the Great Jazz Repertoire.

But fine as some of his pieces are--such as “Reflections of a Detective, 3 A.M.”--to carry off 2 hours of personal musical vision would tax all but a handful of compositional geniuses, the likes of Duke Ellington or Thelonious Monk.

The most stunning moment of the night came in Owen’s moving tribute to his brother’s former schoolteacher--a young woman named Patty Pratt, killed in an accident at 26, who wrote “He Belongs,” a beautiful song in the mode of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Her song received a probing philosophical solo that suggested Owen’s reflective musical sensitivity deserves more room than his own compositions can give it.

Owen’s success as a writer has clearly attracted a following. But the liabilities of the restricted format he emphasizes--despite ventures into mid-range blues and boogie-woogie, and his appreciation for salsa and other rhythmic cadences--do full justice neither to his own interpretive talent nor to the classic musical heritage known as jazz. That heritage gains too little attention in a rock-drenched culture.

Paul Carman’s work on soprano and tenor saxophones carried this night to its sweetest moments. His exquisite reading of “Three A.M.” carried a Stan Getz-like clarity. Thomas’ exuberance on several percussion instruments lent affectionate energy to a sometimes-unvaried mood of unabashedly romantic nostalgia.

At its most compelling, the evening approached the funky warmth of Vince Guaraldi. Yet even a full-fledged devotee might hope to hear how Sandy Owen’s chops stand up to the songbooks of Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Mandel and Wayne Shorter.