Watrous Sails Through the Rough Stuff

Trombonist Bill Watrous has been playing so well for so long that it’s hard to understand why he hasn’t had higher visibility among the wider jazz audience. A veteran of experiences reaching from the musical caldron of Charles Mingus’ groups to the eclectic demands of staff work at CBS, he has long been considered a model practitioner of the instrument by other trombonists.

Friday, in the first set of a two-night engagement at the Jazz Spot in Los Feliz, Watrous quickly demonstrated why he deserves to be more widely heard and why his instrumental compatriots admire his playing. A pair of standards--the old Franz Lehar operetta song “Yours Is My Heart Alone” and one of jazz vocalists’ favorite ballads, “You Don’t Know What Love Is”--revealed his silken tone and extraordinarily fluid high register, his control of the horn undeterred by a 101-degree fever due to the flu.

“Why Not?,” a complex work by Dominican pianist-composer Michel Camilo, provided very different challenges, its rapid-fire line and pianistic range a demanding chore for exposition on the trombone. But, performing a rhythmically quirky arrangement of the piece by Patrick Williams, Watrous--with southpaw bassist John Leitham and longtime associates Shelly Berg, piano, and Randy Drake, drums--winged through the complex lines with ease and an implicit understanding of the tune’s whimsical undercurrent of humor.

Further enhancing the program was the fact that Watrous comes from a generation that understands and values the importance of connecting with an audience. His lead-ins to each tune were often humorous, and he indicated a willingness to temper the improvisational qualities of his performance with both a Dave Frishberg-like vocal and an impressive whistling solo on Frishberg and Johnny Mandel’s “El Cajon.” Brief though his hourlong set may have been, it was a first-rate showcase for a first-rate jazz talent. At 60, Watrous is still in peak form and still deserving of a more extensive audience.