Jazz Reviews : Branford Marsalis Goes His Own Way at Strand

Identity--instant recognizability to an audience--may be one of the most difficult problems of all for the young jazz musician. Which makes it remarkable that a performer like tenor saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who performed at the Strand in Redondo Beach, can so quickly have become such a publicly recognizable new player.

A virtual pop star and budding actor as the result of his work with Sting, Marsalis also is viewed as one of the most adventurous improvisers on his instrument. His Thursday night program made a vigorous effort to showcase the more intrepid aspects of his playing. Yet one suspects his high visibility had a distinctly positive effect upon the palatability of his often thorny music to the audience.

Working with a trio that included longtime regulars Kenny Kirkland on piano and Jeff (Tain) Watts on drums, as well as Bob Hurst on bass, Marsalis played a program mixed with standards, jazz classics and originals. Despite the harmonic underpinnings of most of the material, his solos often soared into the open spaces of “free” (non-chordal) improvisation.

On pieces like Thelonious Monk’s “Balue Bolivar Balues Are” and the standard “The Nearness of You,” for example, Marsalis’ improvisations quickly moved above and beyond the pieces’ basic chord changes. Nothing wrong with that, in principle, except for the odd feeling of detachment that Marsalis’ approach tended to create.

Monk’s work almost demands that the soloist build variations in direct reference to the melody; Marsalis declined, relying instead on bold, multichromatic flurries and sweeps of sound. “The Nearness of You” is a romantic ballad whose slow tempo at first suggested an awareness of its interior emotions; Marsalis’ solo quickly proved to the contrary.

Marsalis’ improvisations, in fact, often seemed emotionally detached from the rest of the music. Clearly he has the technical skills to play almost anything he wants. But for this performance, he played mostly notes. Rapid-fire, never-ending, disconnected bursts of notes.

It was not the stuff of which good music or high visibility is made. Yet the persistent thought remained that Marsalis can be a prominent, as well as an audacious, jazz player. But not on this night.