JAZZ REVIEW : Akiyoshi Evokes Bud Powell

When pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi appears in a small-group context, you can be sure she doesn’t leave the arranging and orchestration facets of her musical personality--so well represented in her Jazz Orchestra--locked up in some closet. Nope, she places those elements right down front, as she demonstrated Wednesday night at the Vine St. Bar & Grill in Hollywood.

Working with longtime and empathetic compatriots Dennis Irwin (bass) and Eddie Marshall (drums), Akiyoshi’s organizational skills marked each of her seven selections in her opening set. There was the trio’s teamwork on the melody of the pulsing “Count Your Blessings,” where Irwin’s notes meshed with ideas from Akiyoshi’s left hand; and there was the captivating “P.A.J.,” an exotic, rhythmically complex tune that seamlessly moved through moods from somber pensiveness to uplifting funkiness. Her pairing of Bud Powell’s “Cleopatra’s Dream” with his “Un Poco Loco” was a semi-suite, with the former’s minor feeling contrasting with the latter’s aggressive wallop.

Within her well-constructed frameworks, Akiyoshi delivered substantial portions of her bop-based improvisational style. These included short ideas infused with a drummer’s rhythmic authority, blurring scalar bursts and lines that darted for a few notes in one direction, stopped suddenly--Akiyoshi has always been a crafty employer of silence--then galloped off again. This approach showed significant tips of the influence hat to Powell, her chief inspiration, and to Teddy Wilson, who could be heard in the even, rounded series of notes that are at the heart of an Akiyoshi solo.

Watching the leader was almost as pleasurable as listening to her. Akiyoshi sat on an opened phone book and, hunched slightly over, stared intently at the keyboard as she played, as if defying her instrument not to do her bidding. If it was a spell, it worked. Occasionally she would break into a glowing smile as she responded to something she played, but then the stern, concentrated gaze returned.

Irwin soloed at length on several tunes, playing ideas that had fluidity and punch. Marshall enhanced it all with his sensitivity and his snap, driving hard when necessary, then singing with his set on his solos.

Akiyoshi, who has remained a first-class music maker in the jazz business for over 35 years, closes Saturday.