A Monk Sextet With an Art Blakey Feel

Art Blakey was the name that kept coming to mind during the opening set of the T.S. Monk band at Catalina Bar & Grill on Tuesday night. Not because Thelonious Monk Jr.’s drumming was reminiscent of the work of the legendary drummer-bandleader. It wasn’t. But his band had the same kind of spirited, hard-driving enthusiasm that always seemed to be present in the many editions of Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

One of the reasons was clearly due to the fact that the Monk band’s well-crafted arrangements were written by trumpeter Don Sickler, a former Blakey sideman. Another was the long-term association that the horn section--alto saxophonist Bobby Porcelli and tenor saxophonist Willie Williams, in addition to Sickler--has shared. Unlike bands assembled solely for specific tours, the Monk instrumentalists played with the easy intuitiveness of having worked together for years, executing every piece with smooth-functioning togetherness, balancing crisp written passages with articulate soloing and an urgent sense of swing.

Sickler’s charts ranged across a gamut of hard-bop tunes by Hank Mobley, Idrees Sulieman and others. And Monk Sr.’s “Think of One” was thrown in for good measure, its impact heightened by Sickler’s transcription of a Monk piano solo, arranged for the horns to play in harmony.

Each of the horn players offered crisp, confident solos, their assertive qualities also reminiscent of the vigorous energies of the Messengers, with Porcelli, in particular, serving up a series of bop-drenched choruses that built to one exciting climax after another. And pianist Ray Gallon, one of the band’s younger members, added a few gentler touches, especially during his sensitive solo on Sulieman’s “Waiting,” with his laid-back but rhythmically precise style providing a perfect counter to the otherwise high-voltage proceedings.

Monk’s drumming, with the able support of Gary Wang’s bass playing, held everything together with a combination of subtle precision and in-the-pocket rhythmic momentum. Sudden shifts of emphasis, briskly accented support for the horns, an urgent swing beneath the solos--it all took place with the symbiotic musical intimacy of players who are in near-perfect sync with one another. Blakey would have loved it.

* The Thelonious Monk Jr. band at Catalina Bar & Grill through Sunday. 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., (213) 466-2210. $18 cover tonight, Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m.; $16 cover tonight and Saturday at 10:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9 p.m. Two-drink minimum.