Creative Interaction From McLaughlin Trio : Jazz: The guitarist demonstrates how easily the music can incorporate a colorful assemblage of styles, influences and attitudes.

John McLaughlin has had so many achievements in his long career that’s its hard to imagine him finding another peak to climb. Yet his current trio--with Trilock Gurtu on percussion and Kai Eckhard on bass--is producing music easily in a class with some of his finest past accomplishments.

Friday night at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach in what was, regretably, the group’s only recent local appearance, McLaughlin and his associates played a set that bristled with creative interaction.

The connections between the players were both intuitive and visual. Gurtu sat on the floor, Indian drummer-style, behind a cymbal-rich collection of instruments. His movements never seemed to stop, touching, stroking and striking his various implements--a mad scientist of percussion, black hair flying, mustache bristling, eyes sparkling. On the opposite side of the stage McLaughlin--cooler-looking, smiling, more laid-back--worked his acoustic guitar, constantly reaching out to make electric eye contact with Gurtu and Eckhard.

McLaughlin mixed rapid-fire, Al DiMeola-like runs with snap-crackle chording and soaringly lyrical melody lines. Yet, as abstract as some of his lines were, he could, on a piece like “One-Night Stand,” abruptly shift gears into a series of hard-swinging, body moving, funk/soul-driven choruses.

Gurtu’s work verged on the remarkable. Firmly based in the extremely complex rhythms of Indian classical music, he demonstrated an equally masterful command of Western jazz drumming. Bassist Eckhard devoted himself, for the most part, to a supporting role, balancing the other players’ solo flights with a solid rhythmic foundation.

The net result was an exquisite evening of contemporary jazz. The McLaughlin trio demonstrated how easily jazz can incorporate a colorful assemblage of styles, influences and attitudes under its mantle of creativity. And that’s exactly the message McLaughlin has been working on--with continuing effectiveness--for years.