JAZZ REVIEW : A Serenade of Classics From Pianist, Bassist

Grace, empathy and an abundance of jazz feeling have long been the hallmarks of the felicitous collaboration of pianist Alan Broadbent and bassist Putter Smith. Armed with these assets and few more for good measure, the pair serenaded a small but mostly attentive audience Tuesday in the lounge of Lunaria, a new Westside bistro that spotlights jazz and, occasionally, Brazilian music.

Broadbent and Smith delivered classic tunes, from Benny Golson’s “Along Came Betty” to Clifford Brown’s “Daahoud” and Billy Strayhorn’s “Upper Manhattan Medical Group,” offering melody readings and improvisations as imaginative as they were musical.

His eyes closed, his head slowly shaking from side to side, Broadbent sat at the same Yamaha grand piano that was a fixture at the now-defunct Comeback Inn in Venice and played with verve and elan. On “Betty,” he ripped off lines that could have been made of glowing pearls, so even and round was the shape of each note. Later, he shifted to locked-hands chords that were full of light, as if a stream of sunshine had entered a darkened room.

On Tadd Dameron’s “If You Could See Me Now,” the pianist was purposefully pensive, his ideas sometimes stated with the apprehension of a cat walking through wet grass. Still, quiet explosions occurred within each brief melodic statement. The closing “Daahoud” crackled with an understated intensity.

Smith was his own man as well as Broadbent’s partner. He hunched over his instrument as he played, delivering lines that supported the pianist, yet were never an intrusion. His solos were often composed of brief, telling remarks, as on “Invitation,” where his minimalist efforts left a lot of space while still echoing the shape and substance of the song’s melody.