Moving In From the Outside : Style Develops in O.C. Sax Man, Who Leads Quintet in Santa Ana and Balboa

Karl Denson’s first exposures to jazz as a teen-ager came via such John Coltrane recordings as “Kule Su Mama” and “Interstellar Space,” explosive, expressive albums that the exalted saxophonist recorded near the end of his life in 1967.

“Coltrane went from the inside out ,” said saxophonist Denson, referring to Coltrane’s evolution from being a melodic-based player who generally stated the notes in a given chord, a style musicians call playing inside, to his position as a champion of free-form, no-holds-barred improvisations where adherence to the notes in a chord was abandoned, known as playing outside.

“I went from the outside in ,” said Denson, 35, who in the past decade has gravitated more and more toward “inside,” be-bop-type, harmonically rooted solos. The horn man leads his quintet Mondays at Randell’s in Santa Ana and Tuesdays at the Studio Cafe in Balboa.

When Denson--who lists Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Joe Henderson among his favorites--played at the Studio Cafe last month, both his compositions and his improvisations reflected this outside-in approach. The strength of Denson’s tunes recalled such hard-bop composers as Horace Silver. His compositions are not blues numbers per se, but they have a deep-down bluesy swagger, a propulsive swing feeling that can’t help but grab the listener.

Denson said it’s that feeling he’s after. “I want the music to come across like dance music,” he said in a recent phone interview from his home in El Toro. “I want the people dancing in their seats. So I’m not as interested in playing a lot of notes as much as making people tap their feet. I look at a man like Duke Ellington as my hero. He wrote to the (credo) of his song, ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).’ Some of his strangest music still swings hard.”

The saxophonist said that even non-jazz fans are connecting with his music. “A tune like ‘A Minor Skirmish’ swings, and it gets a good response right after the opening statement,” he said. “I notice people who aren’t jazz listeners, they’re bobbing their heads or patting their feet. I can tell by the looks on their faces that this music is not what they expected.”

Denson’s music still has its edgy, adventurous aspects. Heard earlier this month at the John Coltrane Festival in Los Angeles, where his quintet received the festival’s Young Musicians Award, Denson, trumpeter Ron Stout, pianist Frank Strauss, bassist Jesse Murphy and drummer Trevor Lawrence offered material that had plenty of bite and Angst. They delivered tunes with solos that swayed between a riotous, hellbent effusiveness and a quieter calm.

“Free jazz is in certain ways more fun to play than be-bop,” Denson admitted. “But I learned a while back that it’s difficult to get people to sit down and listen to it.”

And perhaps because free-form jazz doesn’t demand the knowledge of tunes and forms that the be-bop style does, it’s easier to play. Denson recalls with an embarrassing moment at a jam session when he was struggling with the classic pop standard, “All the Things You Are.”

“I was completely lost,” he said. “You have to know where you’re going with those tunes. So I have been working my way back into the tradition and developing an understanding of the roots. There’s so much literature there that it kind of takes you over when you develop a taste for it.”

Denson said that he still hasn’t gotten be-bop completely under his belt, nor is he solidly at home playing blues. He said he excels at modal compositions, where a one or two chords are employed for improvisations, as if a painter were using only two or three colors, instead of hundreds, for a huge canvas.

“With be-bop and blues, I’m still doing the rite of passage,” Denson said. “I listen to the way I play those type of tunes and the way Ron Stout does, and that’s why I refer to him as my tutor,” he added with a laugh.

Denson was born in Quantico, Va., and moved to Orange County when he was 6. He was graduated from Santa Ana Valley High School and attended Fullerton College and Cal State Long Beach. Since the mid-’80s, the saxophonist has made the lion’s share of his living touring with pop singers O’Bryan and Lenny Kravitz.

But it’s establishing a personal statement in the jazz vein that drives Denson, who can be heard on trombonist Fred Wesley’s “Comme Ci, Comme Ca” on Antilles Records. Denson’s Antilles debut is due out in March.

“I’m trying to make my tunes come to life, make them something they weren’t before,” he said. “I want people to feel they’ve come to my world, not just the jazz world. I’m after something different.”

Karl Denson’s quintet plays Mondays, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., at Randell’s, 3 Hutton Centre Drive, Santa Ana. No cover, no minimum. Information: (714) 556-7700. Also Tuesdays, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., at the Studio Cafe, 100 Main St., Balboa. No cover, no minimum. Information: (714) 675-7760.