JAZZ REVIEW : A Lower-Soaring Sanders at Catalina Bar

Pharoah Sanders didn’t waste any time getting started Tuesday in the opening set of his five-night run at Catalina Bar & Grill. Striding onstage in a well-tailored gray silk suit, teal-blue shirt and white African cap, he immediately launched into an up-tempo series of choruses on “Speak Low.”

The solo didn’t end until it was reaching toward 15 minutes, with Sanders hovering magisterially over his tenor saxophone, white chin-beard gleaming, as he attempted to wrestle everything he could out of his instrument.

On some nights, the result might have been a boundary-stretching tour through the outer limits of the jazz saxophone. But not this time.

The Sanders who has played superbly on two studio recordings within six months of each other in 1992 and who recently discovered seminal creative connections in sessions with Gnawa musician Maleem Mahmoud Ghania, only seemed to drift around the fringes of the set. Every now and then he emerged--conspicuously so in a cadenza at the close of a ballad rendering of “Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” and in the vamp-based repetitions of the final tune. More often, to the occasional bewilderment of the audience, the music showcased a Sanders who struggled with a rebellious reed and who was detached enough from the proceedings to head for the musicians’ backstage room whenever the rhythm section players were soloing.

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To their credit, his accompanists--the splendid local rhythm team of William Henderson, piano; Jeff Littleton, bass, and Sherman Ferguson, drums--filled in the gaps with enthusiasm and imagination. Littleton, in particular, was in fine solo form, with Henderson, as always, delivering briskly rhythmic harmonies and Ferguson laying down an irrepressible flow.

But, good as they were, there were moments when the rhythm section’s straight-ahead, mainstream drive appeared out of context with the avant-garde qualities of Sanders’ playing style. It was yet another problematic aspect of a dispassionate performance from a world-class player who--on this night, at least--never quite managed to display the full length and breadth of his skills.

* The Pharoah Sanders Quartet, Catalina Bar & Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., (213) 466-2210. Through Sunday. A $12 cover tonight, Friday and Sunday; $15 cover Saturday, with a two-drink minimum. Sanders performs two shows nightly, at 8:30 and 10:30.