Turre Fills His Seashell Playing With Imagination, Intelligence

The Miscellaneous Instruments category in Down Beat’s annual polls has always been a kind of catchall grouping. This year, typically, it encompassed Toots Thielemans’ harmonica (which won), Bela Fleck’s banjo, Howard Johnson’s tuba and Erik Friedlander’s cello.

But it’s unlikely that there has ever been a more unusual entry than Steve Turre’s conch shells. And the motivation that led him to conclude that it was possible to play jazz on a random set of seashells was only slightly less amazing than the decision by the first person to conclude that a lobster might make a tasty meal.

The results, in any case, have been extraordinary. In Thursday night’s late set at the Jazz Bakery, Turre proved that his mastery of the shells is not just a gimmick. Working with a table full of various-sized instruments, he used them singly and in pairs, snapping out brisk solo improvisations and harmonized riffs.

Given the acoustical limitations--he can, in principal, only play notes across the overtone series--Turre garnered amazing results, using bent pitches and sliding tones to produce a remarkably wide array of sounds.

Turre’s expertise with the shells, however, has often tended to overshadow his fine work as a trombonist. And that’s a shame, because the imagination and intelligence that he brings to his shell playing flows from who he is, and who he has been, as a trombonist.

In a lovely rendering of “Misty,” for example, he used a plunger mute (with a straight mute) to produce a sensuous, lyrical interpretation enlivened with pointed rhythmic accents. In the up-tempo “Blackfoot” (which featured a lengthy drum solo by Yoran Israel), he displayed his virtuosic mastery, whipping through the demanding chord changes of “Cherokee” with a driving, floating-over-the-rhythm ebullience.

Turre was ably supported by the accompaniment of Stephen Scott (whose highly personal piano playing deserves far more acknowledgment than it receives), Buster Williams’ dependable bass work and Israel’s spirited drumming.

* The Steve Turre Quartet at the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City. Tonight at 8 and 9:30 and Sunday at 7 and 8:30 p.m. $22 admission. (310) 271-9039.