JAZZ REVIEW : Porcupine Is Missing Some of Its Old Sharpness

Porcupine is the luxury sedan of fusion bands, a comfortable, well-appointed model full of high style and fine appointments. Through a pair of albums and a host of live appearance in Los Angeles and Orange counties, the five-piece band has gained a reputation for clean lines and a tight sense of fit and finish.

Though Saturday’s appearance at Randell’s was no lemon, it wasn’t quite up to the seamless presentation one expects from the ‘pines. Part of the reason was a substitute saxophonist, unfamiliar with the group’s book. Another: The group was trying out new material, some of it being performed in public for the first time.

But when the band was running on all cylinders, it was quite a performance. Porcupine’s principals, drummer Bernie Dresel and pianist Bill Cunliffe, bring an unusual amount of intelligence and technical skills to their music, qualities missing from most crossover bands.

Cunliffe was the winner, in 1988, of the first Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition. These days, the prize usually guarantees a major-label recording contract for the first-place (and often the second-place) finisher. But that wasn’t the case when Cunliffe won, and he has worked hard to build a following, pursuing both fusion and mainstream careers.

Dresel is a busy studio and session musician who likes to develop his rhythms into something more than timekeeping. Even during the most beat-conscious pieces, such as “Adventures of Cal Ipso,” Dresel was never content Saturday to just lay down the beat, instead varying his sound with various drum and cymbal combinations. Together he and Cunliffe have made Porcupine one class act.

Much of that is due to the music they write for themselves--melodically accessible, beat-driven numbers with enough variation to keep even jaded listeners in line. Add their high level of musicianship--Cunliffe is especially adept at developing a tune’s lyrical side--and you have, as the pianist called it from the bandstand, “music that sticks with you.”

Michael Paulo, sitting in for usual saxophonist Brian Scanlon, brought a sense of adventure to the music, especially when playing alto. But his unfamiliarity with the material may have hampered his expression. He seemed particularly reserved while maneuvering his soprano through the mid-tempo exercise called “Street Bop,” and he sat out entirely during Cunliffe’s ballad “Street Eyes.”

But during the funk-driven Cunliffe-Dresel number “If Not Now, When?” he slipped into his alto improvisation with some well-placed dissonance, giving the piece an uneasy edge, before stringing together a series of quick, fluid lines. He was particularly soulful on a new tune, “Ready and Waiting.”

The tropical feel of the tune gave Dresel a chance to do what he does best: color his sound with cymbal effects and sultry tom-tom exchanges. Tim Weston, the former Wishful Thinking guitarist, added further color to the mix with ringing accompaniment chords, and solos that built from note-at-a-time runs into rich, multi-tone blends. Weston was particularly effective during the lush construction of “Armed Response,” a piece that also featured dependable bottom riffs from bassist Rick Shaw.

The principal soloist, though, was Cunliffe, mixing acoustic and electric tones with sounds from Randell’s resident B-3 organ (an instrument not usually part of the Porcupine mix). He backed his piano work with synthesizer-produced strings in “Starlit Eyes” and showed some Les McCann-styled soul in “Cal Ipso.” His dynamic build during “Armed Response” grew not only in volume but in detail and emotion as well.