Hargrove Mixes Strong Playing, Writing

Though his album “Habana” won him a Grammy just days ago for best Latin jazz performance, trumpeter Roy Hargrove played nothing from that recording, or any Latin jazz for that matter, when he opened a four-day run Thursday at the Jazz Bakery.

Instead, with a newly configured sextet, the 29-year-old trumpeter wowed a near-capacity crowd with sometimes obscure jazz tunes, a pair of ballads and updates of Hargrove originals recorded five and more years back. The long first set emphasized the physical over the cerebral and showed that Hargrove is maturing not only as a player but as a bandleader as well. The Afro-Cuban music? It wasn’t missed.

Hargrove’s sextet features a pair of established players--pianist John Hicks and trombonist Frank Lacy--matching wits with hungry, emerging players of Hargrove’s generation. Bassist Gerald Cannon made the biggest splash among these up-and-comers with his Mingus-like assertiveness, attention to pitch and a clever stream of improvisational ideas. In tandem with drummer Willie Jones III, who’s continued to strengthen his sound since moving from L.A. to New York last year, Cannon drove Hargrove’s often furious tempos with a surfeit of low-down muscle.

Veterans Hicks and Lacy delivered strong, contrasting personalities. The pianist has worked with Art Blakey, Pharoah Sanders, Chico Freeman and others over the years and has recorded a host of albums under his own name. He provided rich, proactive accompaniment and amazingly detailed improvisations that often brought cheers from the crowd. The flamboyant Lacy, whose slide antics have graced recordings by Lester Bowie, Julius Hemphill and David Murray, made elephant calls on an old Jazz Messenger tune recorded in 1961, “Circus.” He slid up and down in a continuous, three-octave-long line during a reworking of Hargrove’s “The Thang.” His movements around the microphone often resembled those of a boxer with a very long nose.

Lacy, Hargrove and saxophonist Sherman Irby made for an athletic front line, with Irby’s soul-meets-bop, Cannonball Adderley-inspired alto play giving further contrast. Themes were stated in constantly changing combinations that made the most of each horn’s sound and character. Older Hargrove material presented in new form, including “Caryisms” (recorded in 1992 and now renamed “Caryisms ‘98”), witnessed Hargrove’s sharpening skills as a writer.

The trumpeter, working in glowing tones, made his most moving statements playing fluegelhorn on the ballads “All the Way” and “My Foolish Heart.” Though Hargrove’s up-tempo trumpet play was astoundingly acrobatic, it sometimes lacked content and narrative flow. But when his mind and muscle came together, the trumpeter could bring down walls.

* The Roy Hargrove Sextet plays the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City, tonight, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m., $20; and Sunday, 8 and 9:30 p.m., $18. (310) 271-9039.