All That Jazz!! : Music: Concerts scheduled for this month represent the broadest possible cross-section of the genre, and the choices are mind-boggling.

By DIRK SUTRO

May 7, 1991 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

This month presents jazz fans with a genuine quandary: more top-notch music than anyone can possibly digest in four weeks. Concerts scheduled in May include the far-out, atonal orchestrations of saxman Henry Threadgill, acoustic jazz prodigies the Harper Brothers and Courtney Pine, the pop jazz of saxman David Sanborn, rising trumpeter Mark Isham and straight-ahead jazz legends Harry (Sweets) Edison and Cedar Walton.

And the mind-boggling list continues: trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Arturo Sandoval (a recent Cuban immigrant who is making a splash with his spicy jazz), Australian multihorn player James Morrison in his San Diego debut, guitar/vocal duo Tuck and Patti, La Jolla-based saxophonist Charles McPherson, trombonist Ray Anderson and orchestra-in-a-box Bobby McFerrin.

(For a complete list, see related story.)

The music represents the broadest possible cross-section of jazz. Besides pop and straight-ahead variations, Threadgill is joined on the fringe by experimental performances this month at the Marquis Public Theatre, part of Rusefest ’91.

On “Spirit of Nuff Nuff,” released this year, Threadgill continued the exotic explorations he began in the 1960s as a founding member of the Assn. for the Advancement of Creative Music in Chicago, with Muhal Richard Abrams and Anthony Braxton.

Threadgill, who appears at Elario’s this Wednesday and Thursday nights, said in a recent interview with WKCR-FM in New York that a changing society is reflected in the new music being produced by him and his new band, the Very Very Circus. One interpretation: There is tension but also limitless possibility.

With Threadgill on sax and flute, plus two electric guitars, two tubas, drums and French horn, the Very Very Circus produces some very, very unusual combinations, under the rein of Threadgill’s sometimes-spacey but always controlled compositions. Even to the uninitiated, some of Threadgill’s stuff will be enjoyable--a driving, rhythmic base offers reference points among wailing saxes, tubas and guitars.

The Harper Brothers, who open five nights at Elario’s on May 15, are part of a new generation of jazzmen with roots deep in the more traditional jazz of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

Band leaders Philip and Winard Harper, both still in their 20s, grew up in a music-filled Baltimore household where their late father, Hodges, and older brother, Danny, were fans of the music of Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Wynton Kelly and other jazz greats.

Trumpeter Philip Harper is part of a chain of hot young trumpeters (including Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard who came up through the late drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Drummer Winard Harper developed his Roach-like polyrhythmic approach with Dexter Gordon, Jackie McLean and Betty Carter.

“Artistry,” released this year and recorded live with an audience in an RCA studio where Thelonious Monk made some of his great recordings, finds the brothers carving out their own identity on their third album, which includes several well-crafted original tunes.

Some of the young Turks hailed for reviving interest in traditional jazz cast their music in a brooding, languorous mode that comes out of John Coltrane and cool-era Miles Davis. But the Harpers take a sassier, wittier approach that extends the Roach/Brown/Cannonball Adderley continuum.

Rapidly shifting chord patterns and Winard Harper’s simmering work on drums provide a base over which Philip Harper, tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson and alto saxophonist Justin Robinson (an original band member who returns to round out a sextet on this tour) interweave twisting, turning improvised lines.

Like the great Adderley and Roach/Brown ensembles, the Harpers pride themselves on airtight ensemble work, as opposed to a band as a vehicle for front men. The resulting sum is a synergistic total greater than the parts.

The band’s pure acoustic approach is a search for qualities Winard Harper doesn’t believe are present in much of today’s music--he doesn’t come right out and say it, but it is clear he believes synthesizers have been overused.

“One thing about good jazz, the music is so intimate and warm,” he said. “I think we’ve gotten to a time where a lot of things we’re used to are killing us--meat, white bread, tap water. I think everybody wants to get back to a point where things are all natural, with no artificial ingredients.”

To pianist Walton, 57, who played with Blakey’s Messengers during the early 1960s, years before the Harpers and Marsalis, and who joined Winard Harper on stage in Boston one night last year, the young jazz Turks offer a new note of optimism in jazz.

“I marvel at the energy and challenge they’ve undertaken, because a lot of their peers have gone in other directions,” said Walton, who duos with San Diego flutist Holly Hofmann Saturday night at the Horton Grand in the Gaslamp Quarter. “It just solidifies the fact that this music is one of the classic molds, it illustrates how to play instruments in a real sophisticated manner, just as one could study the European classics.”

In his own career, Walton continues to compose and play club dates on his own and with the Timeless All Stars. His most recent releases are re-issues on CD of early 1980s sessions titled “Cedar III” and “Among Friends.” Two new recordings are due this summer: a trio outing with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Billy Higgins, and a quintet session featuring trumpeter Terence Blanchard a new alto sax find Jessie Davis.

Along with Threadgill, a generation of slightly older musicians began exploring alternative approaches to jazz during the early 1960s. Among them was saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders.

It was through his association with Sanders and such other under-exposed jazz players as Charles Lloyd and Art Lande that pop jazz trumpeter Isham arrived at the more accessible sound he favors today.

“If you come up through any of the non-mainstream music, you can gather several points of view,” Isham said. “Sometimes it’s disheartening to see such fabulous musicians go sort of unrecognized. I simply feel that for me the greatest challenge right now is to try and find some sort of area in the middle. There are a few who do it, some of whom come from the rock side, such as Peter Gabriel and Sting, who have had mainstream acceptance but have been very explorative.”

Isham, 39, is often able to strike such a balance. His version of the Rodgers and Hart standard “Blue Moon,” on his new, self-titled fourth album, is a slow, dreamy ramble featuring his muted, Miles-ish trumpet and Tanita Tikaram’s dark, brooding vocals.

A final note: the May jazz lineup in San Diego is no fluke. The months ahead indicate the local jazz scene is stronger than ever. Among the music due in June: a mini-fest of Brazilian jazz at Elario’s; George Benson, Ottmar Liebert, Spyro Gyra and Hiroshima at Humphrey’s; the Duke Ellington Orchestra at the Belly Up Tavern, and Tito Puente at the Del Mar Fair.

May’s Full Jazz Calendar

May 9: Steve Allen and his Big Band, Belly Up Tavern

May 10, 11: Cedar Walton, Horton Grand Hotel

May 11: Harry “Sweets” Edison, U.S. Grant Hotel

May 13, 14: David Sanborn, Humphrey’s; Arturo Sandoval, Elario’s

May 15: Fattburger, The Catamaran

May 15-19: The Harper Brothers, Elario’s

May 16: Freddie Hubbard, Mandeville Auditorium, UCSD

May 17: James Morrison, Horton Grand Hotel; Mark Isham, Bacchanal; Randy Porter and Bill Cantos, All That Jazz

May 19: Richard Elliot and Keiko Matsui, Humphrey’s

May 23: Tuck and Patti, Humphrey’s

May 23-26: Courtney Pine, Elario’s