JAZZ REVIEW : A Jam Crammed With Good Riffs : Saxman Wilton Felder and guitarist Phil Upchurch contribute some dazzling solos in a session with Luther Hughes’ trio.

“This is a good, old-fashioned jam session,” bassist Luther Hughes announced from the bandstand Thursday at El Matador. “We’re up here just callin’ some tunes.”

But the evening wasn’t as run-of-the-mill as that statement might indicate. What made this particular session one for the books was the addition of Crusaders’ saxophonist Wilton Felder’s and veteran guitarist Phil Upchurch’s addition to Hughes’ trio. Although the format was certainly in the great jazz tradition of musicians getting together unrehearsed to play some tunes, this session was anything but old-fashioned.

The quintet got things moving with Felder’s “Last Call,” a mid-tempo excursion with a solid beat that saw the tall, imperially slim Felder negotiating his tenor sax through a maze of involved runs that often ended in pinched, high-end squeals. Upchurch filled his improvisation with slippery tones, a series of ascending chords and out-of-the-ordinary progressions that gave his solo a talkin’-to-ya quality. Keyboardist Mark Massey, who seemed particularly attuned to Upchurch during the course of the evening, took a bluesy tack, while Hughes, who always seems most comfortable with Crusaders-style music, played to the tune’s melodic side.

Upchurch called a blues song for the second number, then turned the familiar changes into a wonderfully skewered fantasy, prying the tune open with needling lines and quirky chord placement. Massey followed with a rich, yet equally twisted approach, and Felder quoted from “Teach Me Tonight” during his solo.

Felder switched to alto as the band honored a request for “Bye, Bye Blackbird.” He brought more of a be-bop feel to that tune, ripping off long statements embellished with high-end accents. Upchurch, whose face reflected every turn he made on his instrument, pushed though the number with a dazzling away of chords and phrases, seemingly operating from the old Miles Davis dictum to “play nothing straight.” For the ballad “When I Fall in Love,” Felder used a soprano to open with introspective lines in a tone that was sharp yet warm.

Hughes’ “Number One Son,” a funky piece with an apparent Crusaders’ influence, found Felder, back on tenor, taking a more rhythmic approach that was broken with a series of rolling phrases. Felder was most soulful on Upchurch’s “This Is What We Call the Blues,” as Upchurch himself churned up a series of circular figures that brought a loud ovation from the crowd. Massey turned the tune inside-out with his widely spaced, soft-touch chords that, after a well-developed dynamic progression, gave way to a rowdy ending.

Behind it all was drummer Dave Hooper, who took a reserved, on-the-beat approach in accompaniment but who sliced into his solo space with sharp cymbal work and intriguing snare- tom-tom combinations. He applied a particularly insistent drive to Yellowjackets member Russell Ferrante’s “Revelations” and spacious, relaxed tempos to the ballads.