Watson Lets His Art Mature With Time : * The alto saxophonist and leader of the band Horizon is capable of intense improvisations and eclectic blends of styles.

There are at least two things distinguishing the sleek but free-spirited group known as Horizon from the general jazz scene.

First, this particular lineup--hot players, all--has been together for five straight years, a solid track record in a music world always subject to change.

Secondly, the fearless and indefatigable leader, alto saxophonist Bobby Watson actually slipped into his (gasp) fourth decade on the planet last year. Ageism tends to govern much of the current jazz market, dominated by either twentysomething players or rediscovered older veterans.

Watson is busy staking out a rewarding middle ground, letting his art mature in due time. Watson was young before being young was popular in jazz. He took his time getting to where he is, and can now be counted as one of the best and most well-versed alto players around.

Born in Lawrence, Kan., Watson went to the University of Miami before heading up to New York. There, he traveled in avant garde circles and, on the straighter side of things, wound up spending five years with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

Leaving Blakey in 1981, Watson formed Horizon, which eventually hit its stride with the addition of drummer Victor Lewis, who now writes some of the band’s best material. The band, which will hit Ojai’s Wheeler Hot Springs on Sunday, also includes trumpeter Terrell Stafford, pianist Ed Simon and bassist Essiet Okon Essiet.

Among the band’s albums is 1991’s “Post-Motown Bop,” a telling title for a band that mixes soul with its post-bop. The new live album on Columbia, “Midwest Shuffle,” may contain the steamiest and most fluid ensemble playing yet.

Horizon is Watson’s main thrust, but he continues pursuing side projects. The Watson bio, to date, also includes his 17-piece Tailor Made Band and a music credit for the Robert De Niro-directed film “A Bronx Tale.”

Interviewed last week from his home in midtown Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and two children, the amiable Watson had just returned from a European tour with the now 11-year-old 29th St. Sax Quartet. That group has earned acclaim as a kinder, gentler answer to the World Saxophone Quartet.

Watson, generally, is one of jazz’s kinder, gentler firebrands, capable of intense improvisations and eclectic blends of styles. But there’s something more affirming than abrasive about his adventures, which are underscored by gentility and warmth.

Could it be a Midwest connection?

“Midwest Shuffle”--did the title come after the song, or vice versa?

It came later. Listen to it: the groove reminds me of someone on a horse. That’s what the Midwest shuffle is. It’s like a gallop.

Did you have a sense back when you started Horizon of what the group identity might be about?

I always had a vision. With this record, we’ve come a closer to what I wanted to do back then.

I’ve been categorized in different ways that I had no control over--like I was hard bop. I was just hoping that I would finally get the right combination of guys so that we could stretch the boundaries and come to this point. It’s taken this long to come to where I’ve wanted to go.

I was very free and open to more experimental things when I first got to New York. I was making bird sounds and was listening to Eric Dolphy. Working with Art, being a Jazz Messenger, you can’t be that way. I realized then that I had to learn more about swinging, so that when I went out again, I’d be saying something.

It’s taken me this long to work my way back out again, only this time with a little more swing in it.

Coming out of Art Blakey, were you inspired by the quintet format and wanted to continue that into your own work?

Yeah. With two horns, you get the beginnings of harmony and counterpoint. The arranging part of me had to have a quintet. I tend to write more line against line, whereas with Art, it was more block-style. We all played the same rhythm at the same time, and we had to follow the leader.

I like to write where the trumpet player can mold his part the way he wants, and my part is flexible enough against his part so that I can do what I want.

It seems that a lot of the younger jazz players, now in their 20s and early 30s, are more conservative than you are, not as open to bringing together different styles or trying out new ideas. Do you sense that irony?

Yeah. I feel like a dinosaur sometimes. These guys are so conservative. That’s one thing about jazz: It was never about conservatism. It’s about everybody having their own philosophy and being a character. All the greats had their own philosophy that went with their style.

I don’t know what to think about all this homogenous stuff. But they’re going to grow out of it. When I was their age, I was exactly the same. The older you get, you start to find yourself. The only difference was that I wasn’t recording like they are now, being put up there. But we were exactly the same, going through those phases.

The thing that displeases me is that (the jazz market is) putting that out there as being what’s happening, and it ain’t. It’s guys my age--Joe Lovano, Jack Walrath, cats who have been out there and found their niche. That’s where the pinnacle of this music is, I think.

Like Art Blakey used to say, this is an art form and things take time. He could just see my frustration when I’d want to do something and it wouldn’t work the way I wanted it to. He’d say “Bobby, now just take it easy. Rome wasn’t built in a day.” That was his favorite saying.

I’d say “I know, I know, but I want it so bad.”

* WHAT: Bobby Watson and Horizon.

* WHERE: Wheeler Hot Springs, 16825 Maricopa Highway in Ojai.

* WHEN: 5:30 p.m. for dinner, show starts at 7:30 p.m.

* COST: $50 for prix fixe dinner and show.

* FYI: 646-8131.