JAZZ REVIEW : Complex Works From Holdsworth, Friends

There’s something lovable about four guys who come out in their wood-shop togs in a small club, as they did Tuesday night at Catalina Bar & Grill, and play the most complicated music in the world for the relatively few folks born to listen to it.

Since the 1970s, when Allan Holdsworth’s guitar mightily fused the jazz-rock of Gong, Jean Luc-Ponty and Tony Williams, the axman has found that, despite five consecutive best guitar synthesist awards from Guitar Player magazine, the music world has de-progressed to a state where most guitarists play fewer notes in a set than he flicks out while tuning up. This has not deterred him from recording (his latest is “Hard Hat Area” on Restless records) and touring regularly to propagate his complex instrumental and compositional style, which is something like a less flip Frank Zappa or a 78 r.p.m. Jeff Beck laid atop lurching accents and unaccountable time signatures.

Holdsworth has no use for the usual progressive bombast; both his solos and his songs display a rare if distant beauty--Bach comes to mind more than Yes. What he lacks is a frame of reference that would connect him to the common bloodstream of human feeling--he’s a bit of a computer geek, alone and obsessed with the bright sparkings of his own internal programs. Of course, that’s practically the definition of an artist, and Holdsworth isn’t so far into the circuitry that he’s unable to find musicians who can keep up with him: faithful keyboardist Steve Hunt, bassist Skuli Sverisson and drummer Joe Taylor certainly can and do.

And they plainly dig the hell out of it--eyes closed, heads nodding on the same string as the audience’s. The musicians have a tightness that comes from simpatico, not from being flogged through Sisyphean rehearsals.

Holdsworth has a moorless freedom that comes from following your own light. Problem is, most of us need special glasses to see the glow.

* Allan Holdsworth at Catalina Bar & Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. (213) 466-2210. $12 cover tonight and Sunday; $15 cover Friday and Saturday; two-drink minimum. Holdsworth plays two sets each night, 8:30 and 10:30, through Sunday.