JAZZ REVIEW : Sanborn Sticks to Familiar Turf

Is David Sanborn stuck in the groove?

Off and on for the past five years, the slim, crying-toned alto saxophonist has been saying in interviews that he’s tired of the funk-R&B;, riff-based tunes that brought him his fame.

Well, on Friday at the Universal Amphitheatre, there he was, treading that familiar turf, playing such groove-driven funk tunes as “Snakes” and “Chicago Song.” And much of the time Sanborn didn’t seem inspired by these vehicles, as he spun out his trademark punchy phrases, his ceiling-high squeals, his gritty blues licks.

To his credit, Sanborn also often offered flowing sequences of incisive, jazz-based ideas on top of the rock-like rhythms that were provided with zest by a band that included drummer Sonny Emory, keyboardist Rickey Peterson and percussion whiz Don Alias.

The saxman mixed it up with some ballads, but he eventually took these softer songs to supercharged climaxes. He did play with subtlety on the ambling, Latin-ish “Alcazar,” where Peterson dropped in a dandy organ solo.

Sanborn has long argued that he’s not a jazz player, yet he definitely possesses a jazz-influenced musicality. If he blended more than snippets of the improvised art into his show, perhaps then he’d find the style that offers him both sufficient challenge and long-term interest.