Revitalized Apfelbaum and Co. Pick Up Beat

In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Bay Area saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum and his Hieroglyphics Ensemble were at the forefront of a new direction in jazz, one with a global perspective of style and instrumentation.

Two critically acclaimed albums for the Antilles label brought together South African township jive, Nigerian Juju beats, Middle Eastern and Afro-Cuban rhythms, funk and jazz improvisation. Commissions came from the Kronos Quartet. The ensemble played huge crowds when opening for the Grateful Dead.

But that was then. The group’s last album, “Jodoji Brightness,” came in 1992. Though Apfelbaum and many of the 12-piece group have maintained visible solo careers (some of the same members are in the Peter Apfelbaum Sextet), it’s been four years since the Hieroglyphics Ensemble has played before an audience. The saxophonist puts the blame for his group’s disappearance on the frequently celebrated San Francisco-area jazz scene.

In a phone call from his boyhood home of Berkeley last week, Apfelbaum says a move to New York, which he made in January, was needed to revitalize his career. “The atmosphere here [in the Bay Area] had gotten used up for me in the last couple years. I love the Bay Area; it’s shaped me as a person. But one starts to feel disconnected out here. In New York, you’re more connected to the whole scene.”

Apfelbaum, in Berkeley to prepare for the Hieroglyphics Ensemble’s return in a concert held Thursday night at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall (the ensemble appears Sunday at the UCLA JazzReggae Festival), says the move has helped him reestablish old connections. He’s putting together a project with percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, with whom he recorded on trumpeter Don Cherry’s 1990 world-beat-influenced recording “Multikulti.” He recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to collaborate with New York-based composer-pianist Muhal Richards Abrams.

The percussion-heavy Hieroglyphics Ensemble now includes Iranian wind-instrument player Hafez Modirzadeh as well as string player Jai Uttall and violinist Rachel Durling, both heard on “Jodoji Brightness.”

Regardless of its point of origin, beat is central to its music. “I realize the foundation of a lot of jazz has been its rhythmic base,” the 37-year-old saxophonist and sometime keyboardist explains, “which led me to embrace modern forms of dance music like reggae, Latin, Afro-beat. In the same way Ellington and Dizzy [Gillespie] used some of the passing dance crazes of the day, we want to make something great that people can dance to.”

* Peter Apfelbaum and the Hieroglyphics Ensemble play the UCLA JazzReggae Festival, UCLA Intramural Field, Sunday, on a bill with Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, Eric Reed Trio, Makina Loca, Billy Higgins’ Leimert Park Drum Ensemble and Five Degrees of Soul. (Monday is reggae day). Noon-7 p.m. Free. (310) 859-4646.

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Super Strummer: Banjo player Bela Fleck, whose Flecktones mix jazz and funk with Irish jigs and bluegrass, says his new album “Left of Cool” breaks one of the cardinal Flecktone rules: Never record anything that can’t be duplicated onstage.

“In the past, we were sticklers about never putting anything on record we couldn’t perform before an audience,” says Fleck, who appears tonight and Saturday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts. “But to continue to record only what we play live began to seem redundant.”

The disc, due June 13 from Warner Bros., finds Fleck playing various banjos, guitars and mandolin, often dubbed over himself, along with various saxophones, synthesizers and other instruments from the trio. “We’ve found we can get a very complete sound on these tunes when we play them live,” Fleck says, “but the record, with its different layers, is something else.”

* Bela Fleck and the Flecktones appear with guitarist Stanley Jordan at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos, today and Saturday, 8 p.m. $25-$40. (562) 916-8514.

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Miles on the Web: The Web site https://www.MilesDavis.com will be launched Tuesday on what would have been Davis’ 72nd birthday. Sponsored by label N2K’s JazzCentral Station.com, the site will kick off with a cybercast of a tribute event to be held at New York’s club Birdland, scheduled to include music and memories from Jimmy Cobb, Wynton Marsalis, George Coleman, Jack DeJohnette, Wallace Roney and others. The event begins at 4 p.m. Log on to https://www.JazzCentralStation.com and click on the “events” icon.

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New Memories:

Jazz has returned to a familiar location, Marla’s Memory Lane, 2323 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The club features music every Friday and Saturday, with vocalist Sonny Craver and a nine-piece orchestra tonight and Saturday, beginning at 9:30 p.m. Pianist Rose Gales leads a combo every Sunday during the club’s brunch, beginning at 11:30 a.m. Actress Marla Gibbs opened the club in 1981. It has been used infrequently since 1994. Information: (213) 294-8430.

Women in Jazz: Saxophonist Ann Patterson’s Maiden Voyage big band appears at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on Monday as part of the center’s three-day Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival. The band returns to Los Angeles on Tuesday to play at Moonlight, 13730 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Information: (818) 788-2000.