Wolff Shows He Hasn’t Lost Direction

Pianist Michael Wolff hit big-time visibility as the music director for Arsenio Hall’s now-departed talk show. Not a bad opportunity for a musician who--despite his previous work as Nancy Wilson’s music director and as a player with the likes of Cal Tjader and Cannonball Adderley--was essentially an unknown to a wider audience.

To Wolff’s credit, he used his position on the Hall show to present an impressive array of jazz artists, from Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter to Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. But, as Branford Marsalis and others have discovered, music-directing a late-night talk show doesn’t do much to enhance a player’s jazz credentials and does even less to further his or her jazz skills.

So it was good to hear, Thursday in the opening set of a four-night run at Catalina Bar & Grill, that Wolff’s television experience has not negatively affected his playing and that he seems once again to be on the right track in search of individual musical expressiveness.

Working with longtime associates Alex Foster on saxophones, John B. Williams on bass and Dick Berk on drums, Wolff played mostly originals, also tossing in a roiling, forward-moving tour across the mesmerizing rhythmic ostinatos of Joe Zawinul’s hit (for Miles Davis), “In a Silent Way.”

Among the Wolff pieces, “The Conversation,” a floating, lyrical melody that exploded into emotional fury via Foster’s aggressive soloing, was particularly effective. The piece was originally composed for the film “The Tic Code,” a dramatic depiction (written and directed by Wolff’s wife, actress Polly Draper) of a jazz musician who, like Wolff, is afflicted with Tourette’s syndrome. And another Wolff original, “Goodbye Too Late,” emerged via a lyrical interactive duet between the leader’s piano and Foster’s soprano saxophone.

The only problem with the performance traced to the quartet’s uncertainty about the room’s acoustics, with both the volume and the intensity creating an edgier, more clattery sound than seemed appropriate for some of the music.

And the set could have used a larger dose of Wolff’s playing. As a generous leader, he allocated considerable solo space to Foster (who needs to find more subtle shading in his improvising) and not enough to his own idiosyncratic piano work. During many brief moments in his choruses, Wolff hinted at one of the more unique visions among contemporary pianists. A broader expansion of that personal musical perspective would have made for a far more provocative program.

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* The Michael Wolff Quartet at Catalina Bar & Grill through Sunday. 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. (213) 466-2210. $12 cover with two-drink minimum. Shows at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.