JAZZ REVIEW : Pete Jolly Trio Plays It by Ear Skillfully and Persuasively at Maxwell’s : Together off and on for 30 years, the three play as one with empathy and excitement--but no music sheets.

Musicality, empathy, excitement, a solid, well-orchestrated and arranged repertoire--the Pete Jolly Trio exhibits all these things, making it one of the most persuasive piano-bass-drums ensembles playing ‘50s and ‘60s mainstream jazz anywhere.

Pianist Jolly, bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Nick Martinis have been together off and on for about 30 years and their performance Saturday night at Maxwell’s showed it. There wasn’t a sheet of music on the bandstand, and yet the three played as one, with Berghofer and Martinis right there, anticipating and then following their leader’s every move. (And this is a band that, according to Berghofer, never rehearses.)

Jolly--who has played with Shorty Rogers, the Lighthouse All-Stars and Art Pepper and who for years has been a mainstay of the L.A. studio music scene--offered a broad range of selections, the arcane (the late pianist George Wallington’s ballad “Variations”) as well as the semi-popular (Dick Grove’s “Little Bird,” a hit for Jolly in the ‘60s). Sometimes this variety resulted in odd segues, as when Wallington’s nimble be-bop “Hyacinth” was followed by Jolly’s “Like a Lover,” a melodic, pop-ish tune that lacks the musical spine of the preceding number.

Still, during the trio’s first set Saturday, things mostly worked. A pleasant blues led to Ernesto Lucauona’s “Say Si Si,” a medium up-tempo Latin-flavored piece included on Jolly’s recent “Gems” CD (on the Holt label). The pianist--whose casual attire, highlighted by a frumpy, gray cotton sports jacket, made him look like either an artist or an accountant--composed his solo of rephrasings of the song’s melody, chime-like chords a la Erroll Garner and bluesy fragments that could have been played by the organist in a Baptist church.

Berghofer, currently Frank Sinatra’s bassist, played with his eyes squinted shut while he dropped in muscular yet not over-loud lines. Martinis, his eyes keenly focused on his cymbals, offered crisp accompaniment.

“Variations” began with Jolly working solo, tucking the melody amid fast-hit chords that splashed like stones striking the still surface of a lake, and long lines that resembled strands of pearls, with notes that were even, round, glistening. Soft, murmured passages were like secrets whispered in the corner of a dark cafe. Berghofer took convoluted, mellifluous approaches to choice, succulent notes, as if he were taking all the side streets on the way home just for the joy of driving.

“Hyancith” had a comely Bud Powell feel to it as the melody curved this way, then that, and Jolly went from fast and furious statements to ones that were slowly placed and deliberate. All the while, Martinis accented deftly with his brushes.

The trio also played Friday night and Sunday afternoon.