Jazz : Hank Crawford Serves Up a Blues Set at Marla’s

Hank Crawford, the Memphis-born, emotionally-charged alto saxophonist whose name has become a virtual synonym for soul, was in town Friday and Saturday leading a quartet at Marla’s Memory Lane.

Crawford’s voluminous, boisterous sound, honed long ago in the bands of B. B. King and Ray Charles, manages to turn almost any song into a blues, even if it is a conventional 1930s ballad like “My Romance,” his opener at Friday’s first show. But the blues form itself is his forte, as he made stridently evident in the next three numbers: A fast blues with busy drum and keyboard solos by Don Littleton and Bobby Pierce; and a slow, sensuous blues called “Uncle Funky” in which Crawford’s bent, keening tones seemed to scream in agony.

A shuffle-rhythm blues followed, with a curious solo by Leroy Ball, whose electric bass has a cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof sound. Then it was back to standards, with a hard-nosed electric funk groove applied to “I Can’t Get Started.” Whatever Crawford may lack in subtlety, he compensates for in infectious projection.

Opening for the quartet was a trio whose combined age is less than Crawford’s. Karon Harrison, 14, who studied drums under Billy Higgins, was joined by 16-year-old Jason White, a Cedar Walton protege, at the piano, and Christy Smith (an older man, possibly even past his teens) on electric bass. This promising group managed to stay within the parameters of jazz, playing “Blue Bossa” and “Solar” to show its credentials.