JAZZ REVIEW : Music From a Bottomless Otwell of Ideas : In His El Matador Set, the Keyboardist Just Keeps Coming Up With Interesting Interpretations of Latin Numbers

To rework half of that old saw about kids, let’s just say that when keyboardist Charlie Otwell plays well, he plays very, very well. We needn’t address the flip side about playing poorly, because Otwell simply doesn’t.

Otwell, who led a quartet at Thursday at El Matador, is a very creative fellow. Even in seemingly limited musical situations, his well doesn’t run dry--he comes up with new idea after new idea, giving his renditions life and making them highly listenable.

In his first set at El Matador, Otwell explored the Latin turf he knows so well from his 10-year tenure as conga drummer Poncho Sanchez’s musical director, which ended in 1989. He also tackled two Brazilian classics from the bossa nova era. It was in the latter numbers, particularly the evocative Antonio Carlos Jobim standard “Corcovado,” that Otwell was at his exhilarating best. Otwell took this poignant piece at a lulling pace. As he performed his interpretation, he kept the song’s delicate flavor and its compelling melody in mind.

Seated at his portable synthesizer--from which he coaxed a medium-bright sound that was part organ, part electric piano--Otwell offered one ringing line and then another. He’d play a long statement that had curves the way Arnold Schwarzenegger has muscles, then follow it with chords that gently tumbled down or that seemed to hang in the air like the thick pastel clouds of a sunset.

Occasionally Otwell would repeat a brief, rhythmically powerful idea, but he always had the good taste, and the good sense, to soon alter it so that little by little, it would become something different. Even if the musical thought had a resounding funky or bluesy feel, Otwell would leave it after a short time, seemingly intrigued by the possibility of finding new things to play.

“What Is This Thing Called Love?” was done in a strictly Latin vein. Here Otwell had the opportunity to show his be-bop chops, expressing himself with a crisp dexterity yet not allowing the technical side to overshadow his considerable musicality.

Otwell, who lives in Orange and teaches music at Orange Coast and Rancho Santiago colleges, was dressed in mostly black casual attire and looked like a youngish John Mayall with his clean-shaven face and sandy hair parted down the middle. He was ably aided by two longtime associates--bassist Ernie Nunez and conga drummer and percussionist Kurt Rasmussen. (The three had a trio that played regularly from 1983 to 1987 at the Studio Cafe in Newport Beach.) Also on hand was trap drummer Gordon Peeke.

The band members backed Otwell with robust support, and when Nunez improvised, the other three surrounded his distinctive statements with a convivial rhythmic babble--sometimes to the extent that the bassist’s lines were all but obliterated. Rasmussen (who also sings with the Orange County-based Pocket Rockets) and Peeke delivered attention-worthy solos.

Otwell’s show did have two small drawbacks. First, almost every selection concluded with a recurring Latin vamp known as a montuno , which the keyboardist and his cohorts played ad infinitum. Second, the leader waited until late in the set to announce his numbers to the audience; most people would rather know as the show goes along which tunes are being played by whom.