Pop and Jazz Reviews : World Saxophone Quartet Whoops It Up

With its amalgam of gleaming instrumental whoops and shrieks, soft purrs and defiant brays, there’s no group quite like the World Saxophone Quartet.

Saxophonists David Murray (tenor, bass clarinet), Oliver Lake and Arthur Blythe (altos) and Hamiet Bluiett (baritone) opened a six-night stand Tuesday at Catalina Bar & Grill with a rollicking performance. They employed both attractive group and individual sounds, creating a wide range of moods.

The quartet, which performed without accompaniment, segued neatly between concisely written material rendered with bracing crispness and improvisations that tended to, at one point or another, result in aural explosions.

A hearty blues element was at the core of most of the band’s unannounced pieces, though it only played one blues per se. This was in the second set where Murray offered a snappy riff on bass clarinet that served as a buoyant bottom platform for his partners, who contrasted Murray’s vamp with intermittently played sustained notes. This tune, like most of the others, didn’t stay put. Soon the foursome soloed wildly together, followed by Lake stepping forward for a compelling essay that was not without its be-bop tinges.

The band was not always turning up the heat, at times playing with a lush warmth that was as welcome as a friendly hug.