JAZZ REVIEW : Past and Present Meet in Petrucciani’s Hands

Listening to the music of pianist Michel Petrucciani during his opening night performance at the Vine St. Bar and Grill in Hollywood on Wednesday night was reminiscent of seeing a Godard or Truffaut film in the late ‘60s. Like the auteur masters of French cinema, Petrucciani’s work was filled with provocative ideas--startling jabs and pokes to both the imagination and the intellect.

His program, which ranged easily from Coltrane and Monk to Ellington and the blues, provided a rich and fertile basis for improvisation. But Petrucciani is not a player who pays cursory attention to his opening theme and then gets down to the serious business of improvising.

In his large, tensile hands, a melody was something to shape and nurture. Solos rarely evolved into pure improvisational phases without retaining suggestive traces and remnants of their original character.

Petrucciani’s work on “In A Sentimental Mood” was a prime example. The melody itself first came to light through a cloud of atmospheric harmonies. Petrucciani then built a series of choruses contrasting soaring right-hand melodies with brisk, punched-out left-hand chords, with bits and pieces of the original theme peeking through the openings in his variations.

Petrucciani, who was accompanied by bassist Andy McKee and drummer Victor Jones, is clearly one of a kind. Playing a style that is rooted in tradition, he has created a uniquely personal, and utterly contemporary jazz voice. Like Truffaut and Godard, he acknowledges the past while his eye is firmly on the present.

Michel Petrucciani continues at the Vine St. through Sunday night. Early reservations are strongly advised.