JAZZ REVIEW : Some Easy Listening From Sanborn

David Sanborn doesn’t like to describe his music as “jazz.” Never argue with a self-defined artist, I always say. Because if his concert at the Wiltern Theatre on Tuesday night was any indication, Sanborn’s etymology is right on target.

Despite working with the jazz- respectable rhythm section of Charlie Haden on bass, Kenny Kirkland on piano, Al Foster on drums and Don Alias on congas and percussion, Sanborn rarely departed from the riff-oriented, rapid eighth-note lines that are the meat and potatoes of his art.

Improvised music?

Sure.

The subtle intricacies of jazz?

Well, maybe we’d better stick with Sanborn’s definition.

On a few, rare occasions--especially Kirkland’s Ellingtonesque ballad “The Tonality of Atonement”--Sanborn revealed the glimmer of a broader interpretive inclination lurking somewhere below the surface. And when he dug into “When Will the Blues Leave,” he actually played with a credible sense of jazz gusto.

But Sanborn clearly appeared most comfortable when he was spinning out the audience-accessible style that has made him one of the influential saxophonists of his generation. A little tense at the start, it took a good hour for his sound--which is, at its best, somewhat edgy--to warm up. A half-hour after that, the group took their bows.

Ninety minutes might make a fair nightclub set but for a concert it felt like shortchanging the audience.

Nor was the truncated evening helped by an audio mix that virtually eliminated the top strings of Haden’s bass and the brighter timbres of Foster’s drums in favor of an overwhelmingly bottom-heavy rumble. To make matters worse, Kirkland’s work, far and away the finest soloing on the program, was marred by a nearly-closed piano lid and janglingly treble microphone placement.