Coltrane’s Improvisations Tap Into His Father’s Spirit

Trying to inhabit someone else’s musical vision is tricky business. And it’s particularly tricky if the vision is as pervasive and far-reaching as the music of, say, Charlie Parker or John Coltrane. So imagine how much harder it must be if the vision is that of your own father.

That’s what Ravi Coltrane faces, and at this stage in his career--he is 34--he undoubtedly has become weary of the comparisons with his iconic parent. Yet as his opening set at Catalina Bar & Grill on Wednesday night revealed, the musical perspective he has embraced contains so many direct connections to his father’s music that comparisons are inevitable.

Coltrane spent the majority of a long, slowly unfolding program rigorously exploring slight, thematic material whose primary purpose was to serve as the springboard for expansive improvisation. And, to his credit and to the credit of his first-rate players--pianist Andy Milne and bassists Darryl Hall and Steve Hass--it was delivered with stunning musical efficiency.

Coltrane’s work on both tenor and soprano saxophones was the product of a masterful technician, obviously capable of playing just about anything he chooses to do. Supplementing his fleet soloing, the rhythm team of Milne, Hall and Hass worked like a superbly tuned engine, sometimes driving the music with great rhythmic intensity, sometimes offering a floating cloud of supportive sound.

But with a few exceptions--a piece from his latest album “From the Round Box,” for one--the mood drifted repeatedly toward the orbit of the senior Coltrane. It’s understandable that Ravi Coltrane would be drawn in that direction, and there’s no denying the musical potential that still exists, unexplored, in the John Coltrane legacy. But jazz that dips through free improvisation, modal playing, random rhythms and collective spontaneity is best when it expresses the social and emotional subtext of the time in which it is created. Coltrane has shown, in his latest releases, that he can position the style within a 21st century context. In his opening night, however, it was, too often, the aura of the ‘60s that dominated.

* The Ravi Coltrane Quartet at Catalina Bar & Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Hollywood. Today and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. $15 cover for all shows. Two-drink minimum. (323) 466-2210.