Jazz Review : Time Is on the Side of Cecilia Coleman’s Quintet

All of us might not be pleased that time marches on, but the leader of a working jazz band usually is: Longevity gives a group the sort of unity that only can come from a continuing succession of performances.

Proof: Cecilia Coleman’s quintet, holding forth Tuesday nights this month at Randell’s. Fresh from a summer tour of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, the band sounds tough and muscular. Coleman (keyboards), Steve Huffsteter (trumpet, fluegelhorn), Andy Suzuki (tenor sax), Dean Taba (bass) and Kendall Kay (drums) have been together 18 months, and the time is really starting to pay dividends.

On a recent Tuesday, before a hardy handful of appreciative fans, the band delivered many choice selections from Coleman’s new “Young and Foolish” CD (on Dan St. Marseilles’ Orange County-based Resurgent label) succinctly and with precision.

The set included the luscious, medium-tempo “Real Thing,” the slow and evocative “Somalia,” the charged “Divine” and “Celia,” a nod to the great Bud Powell. During the improvisations, the sure-footedness that comes from familiarity with this demanding material, and from listening to other band members, was apparent.

Huffsteter, a highly-regarded jazzman for more than two decades, and Suzuki, a solid newcomer, are fine extemporaneous players, and Coleman has emerged as an ace soloist herself. For some time, it appeared that composition was the Long Beach native’s strong suit, but in the past six months or so, her playing has reached new heights.

At Randell’s, she leaned slightly over the keyboard of her Fender Rhodes electric, her long brown hair pulled back, concentration all over her face as she ran smoothy curved, quicksilver lines up and back. Her hard, punchy phrases and chunky chords during “Slippin’ ” and “Home” had a drummer’s insistence about them, and throughout the evening, her statements were informed by compelling melodies.

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Melody also was at the heart of Suzuki and Huffsteter’s solos. During “Somalia,” Suzuki delivered long, crying, pliant phrases; his passages during “Celia” were more chock-full-of-notes and serpentine. Huffsteter was poignant and demure on “Somalia” and more crackling on “Divine,” when his notes were so lively they seemed to buzz. Taba and Kay provided firm yet elastic ballast for the melodies and enhanced the improvisations with deft and empathetic accents.

If there was a shortcoming to the set, it was that several selections were too brief. “Celia” and “Slippin’ ” allotted the improvisers only a chorus or two. Still, Coleman and her band are among the most creative and enterprising jazz groups in Southern California these days, and they deserve to be heard by more than the scant crowds showing up at Randell’s.

* Cecilia Coleman’s quintet plays Tuesdays in September from 8:15 p.m. to midnight at Randell’s, 3 Hutton Centre Drive, Santa Ana. No cover, $10 minimum. (714) 556-7700.