JAZZ REVIEW : All Stars Didn’t Hit Expected High Notes

In San Diego with the Timeless All Stars, saxophonist Harold Land revisited the place where his career began in the late 1940s and early ‘50s.

Land, 62, graduated from San Diego High School in 1946 and turned pro under the tutelage of locals like Fro Brigham.

During their first set Saturday night at Elario’s, the Timeless All Stars, while occasionally invigorating, were also disappointing--the group barely explored its vast potential for ensemble work.

Organized into a group by the Timeless label for a tour in 1983, the six band members still take time off from thriving individual careers to tour together and make albums, the fourth of which is due next year. The lineup has remained the same, except for the addition of trombonist Steve Turre as replacement for Curtis Fuller.

Various members share branches in the tree of jazz history.

Land and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson led a quintet together from 1969 to 1971, and bassist Buster Williams often worked with them. Drummer Billy Higgins and pianist Cedar Walton have collaborated since 1970. And Turre played with drummer Art Blakey, as did Fuller and Walton.

The Timeless All Stars launched Saturday’s opening set with Walton’s up-tempo “Cedar’s Tune,” quickly dispatching the signature melody to move into a series of extended improvisations.

But the piece’s best moments came at the start, when Hutcherson, Land and Turre stated the theme in three-part harmony. Land’s warm, full tenor was sandwiched comfortably between Turre’s trombone and Hutcherson’s vibes, and the united front gave a taste of the group’s ensemble potential.

Then Hutcherson took the first improvisational turn, mallets blurring as he spun sax-like threads with a percussive fury reminiscent of pianist McCoy Tyner. At the other side of the stage, Turre and Land piped in with subtle accents.

Land, resplendent in a double-breasted suit, countered his buttoned-down image with a solo that bristled with the energy and spirit of vintage John Coltrane. At times, Land leans too heavily on Coltrane for breathy slurs, trills and haunting, meditative modes. But Land has also moved beyond Coltrane to a tone all his own: more mellow and friendlier.

During his solo turn, Turre applied a stinging, trumpet-like attack to short bursts of notes that never became satisfying phrases.

“Hindsight” was next, a quieter song that showcased Williams’ bass, with some taut interplay between Walton and Hutcherson, and an inventive, although brief, interlude spotlighting Land’s tenor, while Hutcherson added dreamy fills behind him.

With all the musical horsepower present, it was disappointing that the band gained the most attention with a novelty number. Their version of Miles Davis’ “All Blues” featured Turre--on conch shells, not trombone. He stated the theme from the dreamy, 1950s blues, then embroidered it with oceanic inventions that at times came close to Davis’ original muted trumpet.

When Turre played counterpoint using two shells at once, and extended a note to infinity with a technique known as circular breathing, you could hear and see the influence of the late reed man Rahsaan Roland Kirk, with whom Turre played in the early 1970s.

On “Firm Roots,” Higgins stretched a drum solo to several minutes. He was occasionally brilliant, spinning cyclones of complex polyrhythms, but overstayed his welcome. Some of Higgins’ best moments during the set actually came on other numbers, as he displayed an uncanny rapport with Walton, Williams and Land during their solo turns, serving as the the steady, rhythmic force that glued the music together.

After Hutcherson introduced the group during a brief closing blues, the five-song set was over.

Jazz fans who crave more from Land, a monumental but under-appreciated talent who first gained acclaim with Max Roach and Clifford Brown’s quintet in the 1950s, will have to wait until next year, when he plans a return to Elario’s with his own band.

The Timeless All Stars began their six-week tour in New York last month, and it concludes this week with several nights at Yoshi’s, the Oakland jazz club. They performed for five night at Elario’s.