Flutist Laws Crosses Genres With Creative, Skillful Ease

Tchaikovsky and Ravel are not exactly regular contributors to the programming at the Jazz Bakery. But the music of both turned up Tuesday night in the playing of flutist Hubert Laws.

In fact, the presence of classical themes in a Laws program was not all that unusual, since the veteran jazz artist has made a practice of moving freely between mainstream jazz, smooth jazz, funk and the concert music of Debussy, Bach, Stravinsky and Faure, in addition to Ravel and Tchaikovsky.

Amazingly, Laws does it all with great craft and creativity. Working, in the opening performance of a four-night run, with a strongly supportive quintet, he moved easily from the crisp rhythms of Victor Feldman’s “Seven Steps to Heaven” (performed on piccolo) to a sweeping Ravel theme and a rhythmic variation on Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

Laws’ effectiveness with such a range of styles traced, in part, to his gorgeous sound, with its centered, overtone-rich qualities. Like James Galway, he used it to bring a consistency to his style that reached easily across genre boundaries. Add to that an inherent rhythmic drive in his melodic lines and an imaginative harmonic vision, and the result was a virtual seminar in the interpretive potential of the flute.

He was aided enormously by a sympathetic group of highly responsive players. Pianist David Budway’s classical touch was supplemented by some fiery improvisational passages; keyboardist Rob Mullins added colorful textures and sounds; bassist John Leftwich contributed a solid foundation as well as some strikingly articulate bowed solos; and drummer Ralph Penland revealed that he can counter his bombastic qualities with subtlety and precision.

Curiously, in this otherwise attractive evening of music, Laws chose not to showcase material from his new RKO Unique album, in which he pays tribute to tunes associated with Nat King Cole. It was a strange way to support a new release, and one can only assume that the Cole material will surface during the balance of his run at the Bakery.

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* The Hubert Laws Quintet at the Jazz Bakery, through Saturday. 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City. (310) 271-9039. $20 admission today and Saturday at 8 and 9:30 p.m.