MILLER : Miller Skillfully Mixes Spontaneity, Structure

Bassist Marcus Miller is giving an impressive rendition of a renaissance jazz man at Catalina Bar & Grill this week. In Wednesday night’s opening set, he played bass, soprano saxophone and bass clarinet, sang with vocalist Lalah Hathaway and energized his ensemble with spontaneous back-and-forth riffing with the players.

It was a masterful performance from an artist with an extraordinary amount of talent, and the packed house responded with enthusiastic cheers and applause.

As striking as his own performance may have been, however, Miller’s most remarkable accomplishment was the wide range of color and variety he brought to his music. Clearly influenced by the textural qualities of Miles Davis’ electric bands of the ‘80s (Miller played with the legendary jazz trumpeter in 1981 and ‘82), he expanded on Davis’ style, using it as the foundation for a mix that blended straight-ahead blowing into a steaming caldron of funk rhythms, synthesizer sounds and rhythm & blues licks.

Miller played “Tutu,” one of the memorable numbers he wrote for Davis, opening the tune up to allow his principal soloists--guitarist Hiram Bullock, tenor saxophonist Roger Byam and trumpeter Michael “Patch” Stewart--to stretch. Then, in a startling shift, he picked up his bass clarinet and played a dark, sinuous version of the rarely heard “Strange Fruit,” appending it to yet another funk-driven tune.

In every number, Miller managed to combine spontaneity with structure. Although he took most of the solos, he constantly enlivened his choruses by exchanging riffs with Bullock, Stewart, keyboardists Bernard Wright and Dave Delhomme, and drummer Gene Lake. Best of all, the pieces unfolded in a natural, almost holistic fashion, never simply as theme and variations, almost always as rich, interactive combinations of solo and composition.

The overflow crowd and waiting line for the evening’s second show suggested that the word has gotten out on Miller. In a decade largely dominated by neo-classicism in jazz, audiences seem more than ready to hear the kind of well-crafted contemporary sounds that Miller produces with such skill and musical finesse.

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* The Marcus Miller Band at Catalina Bar & Grill through Sunday. 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., (213) 466-2210. $26 cover at 8:30 p.m., $22 cover at 10:30 p.m., with two-drink minimum.