JAZZ REVIEW : Griffin’s Speedy Sax Has Other Hues Too

You have to listen quickly with tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. Musical ideas come and go with such torrential rapidity that one feels lucky to grab one or two pithy licks as they come flying by.

His appearance at the Jazz Bakery on Wednesday in the opening set of a five-night run was a showcase example of Griffin on the loose. Nearing 67 (his birthday is Monday), he’s lost nothing off his high, hard fastball and has added a few tricky off-speed pitches as well.

The quintessential Griffin was present from the very first number working before a large crowd peppered with admiring local musicians. Fittingly, it was “Just One of Those Things,” a favorite up-tempo lip-buster for virtuosic players. Griffin plunged into his work from note one, accelerating through a series of increasingly complex choruses, seeming to almost never bother to take a breath. If there were any doubts that the European-based musician, who returns to the United States once a year, continues to be a master of the take-no-prisoners tenor-battle style, they were quickly stilled.

But the image of Griffin as high-speed technician has always been too limited, and no less so this time around. The balance of the tunes were all originals--with well-crafted lines, be-bop-tinged up-tempos, a romantically lush ballad and some fine, multihued improvising.

On “What It If,” a whimsical eight-bar blues, his irrepressible humor emerged (“It’s too late to get serious,” he said, announcing the number). “You’ve Never Been There” was a bopish, medium-tempo romp, “Hot Saki” provided further explorations of the changes to “What Is This Thing Called Love,” and “When You’re in My Arms,” the set’s only slow tune, gave Griffin the opportunity to display his linkages to Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon.

The evening’s sole downer was the failure of the rhythm section of Michael Weiss, piano; John Webber, bass, and Kenny Washington, drums, to generate the kind of compelling, in-the-pocket drive that is most appropriate for Griffin’s style of playing. Washington, who is a longtime Griffin associate, did his best, but neither Weiss nor Webber appeared well-integrated into the drummer’s urgent, forward flow of rhythm.

* The Johnny Griffin Quartet at the Jazz Bakery through Sunday, 3233 Helms Ave. (310) 271-9039. $20 admission. Griffin performs one show, at 8:30 tonight and Saturday, at 8 p.m. on Sunday.