Notes That Soar on Spontaneity

Jane Ira Bloom relishes taking risks, walking a new aural path, looking for that as-yet-unplayed phrase. The soprano saxophonist says that’s where the real payoff in music is.

“I’m one of those people who likes being on the edge, that feeling of not knowing which way the music is going to go,” said Bloom from the New York home she shares with her husband, actor Joe Grifasi. “You can reach enormous musical heights when you give in to that kind of spontaneity.”

Bloom and her trio, which includes Bobby Previte on drums and Cameron Brown on bass, appear at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Cal State Northridge Performing Arts Center. The group has been together for three years and specializes in the kind of off-the-cuff modern jazz performances that Bloom thrives on.

One of the reasons she feels the group is so musically successful is that all three are mature musicians who have worked in a variety of situations. Bloom, 43, has appeared with bassist Charlie Haden, saxophonist George Coleman and drummers Ed Blackwell and Jerry Granelli, with the American Composers Orchestra, and her own varied ensembles.

The trio, Bloom said, is intuitive. “When we play together, it just falls into place,” she said. “Everything feels really good. It’s intimate, and the music is full of interesting emotional extremes.”

Finally, there’s the band’s affinity for rhythm. “We share a sense of rhythmic joy,” said Bloom. “Ed Blackwell had a way of playing the cymbal that made you dance. Bobby has that same joy inside him. He’s bursting with rhythmic energy and imagination. And Cameron buoys the sound of the band with his rhythmic sense of time, a buoyancy that’s like the great feeling you get when you dribble a basketball.”

Bloom is a solid leader. Her soprano saxophone playing is, by turns, lyrical, adventurous, swinging and surprising, and she’s long been considered one of the singular instrumental voices in contemporary jazz.

Leonard Feather, the late jazz critic for The Times, referred to her as “a commanding and insightful improviser.”

At CSUN, Bloom will offer both standards and originals--tunes that keep an eye on jazz’s past, and its future. One of these is “Hawkins’ Parallel Universe,” a tune based on “Body and Soul,” the Johnny Green favorite that the redoubtable tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins made into a huge hit in 1939.

“I was musing on what would happen if Coleman Hawkins took his enormous melodic imagination one step further,” said Bloom of her number. “He was always looking for notes outside his musical time, and he was extremely adventurous in his harmonic thinking. This piece is my own take on all that.”

Bloom was born in Newton, Mass., and took up alto saxophone in the third grade. At 12, she began playing soprano and studied with the renowned Boston-based teacher Joe Viola. “So many fundamentals of the musical world I live in I learned from Joe,” she said.

In the late ‘70s, armed with a master’s degree in saxophone performance from the Yale School of Music, Bloom moved to New York City and began establishing herself as a performer, composer and producer.

She has written large-scale works, including “Einstein’s Red/Blue Universe,” which debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1994; film scores, including 1995’s “Shadow of a Doubt,” starring Brian Dennehy; and has recorded several albums, of which the latest is “The Nearness” on Arabesque Records.

Bloom is happy to be making her living in music. “I do struggle sometimes,” she said, “but it’s worth it.”

* Jane Ira Bloom appears at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Performing Arts Center, University Student Union, Cal State Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St. Enter parking lot C off Zelzah Avenue. Tickets: $19, $15 seniors, $10 students. Information: (818) 677-2488.

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Alone Again: Fred Hersch has received notoriety and remuneration working with his spiffy trio, which includes bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey. The group, nominated for a 1993 Grammy for best jazz instrumental group, recorded Hersch’s “Dancing in the Dark” (Chesky).

This year, Hersch has taken time off to indulge himself in a cherished musical activity: performing unaccompanied. Hersch, a New England Conservatory of Music honors grad, recently played three solo concerts in New York.

He will appear sans accompaniment Sunday at First Lutheran Church in Glendale and Monday at the Jazz Bakery in Culver City (310-271-9039).

Hersch, a spirited, inventive pianist who is one of the most sought-after artists on the New York jazz scene, is not short on reasons why he loves playing solo, and he recites them quickly.

“I like the pace and freedom,” he said. “You can go out of tempo, time, you can go to another key, you can use the theme, you can lose the tune altogether. Of course, there’s contrary motion, all kinds of chords, a huge register with wide leaps between notes. So much can be done at the piano.”

Hersch feels that of all his performance modes--solo, duos, trios, small bands, accompanying singers--when he is alone at the piano he is at his strongest. “It has to do with touch, various influences including jazz and classical,” he said, “and my improvisational language.”

“Fred Hersch Plays Rodgers and Hammerstein” (Nonesuch) is the pianist’s latest CD. On it, he investigates both the familiar--”It Might as Well Be Spring,” “Shall We Dance?”--and the arcane--”Loneliness of Evening.” The pianist will offer some tunes off the album as well as some “Monk and some Hersch” when he plays at First Lutheran.

* Fred Hersch plays solo at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at First Lutheran Church, 1300 E. Colorado St., Glendale. Free, donations accepted. Information: (213) 245-4000.