Jazz : Highly Charged Set From Watts Trio

Ernie Watts never ceases to amaze. Los Angeles’ all-purpose saxophonist keeps turning up in new places, playing new music and making the most of every challenge.

Friday night at Le Cafe he found a partnership--with pianist Peter Manning Robinson and bassist Joel DiBartolo--that stretched even Watts’ considerably versatile skills. A pianist-composer who ranges from film and TV scoring to jazz and electronic experimentation, Robinson asked for--and got--a brilliant performance from Watts in a highly charged collection of complex music.

The centerpiece of the trio’s sound was Robinson’s electronically prepared (but non-synthesized) piano, which allowed him to make sudden, startling changes in the timbre, the envelope and the duration of his sounds. In such Robinson pieces as “Aztec Tunnel,” “Rebopaloo” and “The Courtesan,” soaring acoustic melodies and jazz-based rhythms were intermittently transformed into clanging reverberations, massive power densities and echoing repetitions.

For Watts, the evening provided an opportunity to further confirm his superb abilities. For Robinson, the program offered a showcase for a highly individual talent with a bright and promising future.