Haynes Delivers a Subtle Yet Spectacular Drum Performance

Here’s a suggestion for all the drummers out there: Spend an hour or so with Roy Haynes at Catalina Bar & Grill this week. It won’t help you play any faster or any louder, but it will definitely give you some valuable tips on how to use the drum set as a musical instrument, rather than a mere rhythm machine.

Take his Wednesday night performance, for example. It wasn’t as though Haynes was doing anything that seemed noticeably spectacular. Small, compact, seated behind a fairly minimal drum set, smiling, completely involved with the music, he was the central energy force within his quartet.

That, of course, is what one expects from a drummer, but, in addition to the subtlety with which he infused the music with forward motion, Haynes also added equally essential elements of structure and coherence. Solos by the other members--saxophonist Ron Blake, pianist Jason Lindner and bassist Dwayne Burno--were accompanied by a rhythmic flow of percussion sounds that both supported their improvisational excursions and defined the sectionalizations of the underlying harmonies. And it was delivered by Haynes without random bashing, without resorting to glass-shattering cymbal displays or perpetual drum soloing.

Different in style from Elvin Jones’ performance at the Knitting Factory last week, it was nonetheless similar in its definition of jazz drumming as an artful and creative form of expression.

Haynes’ associates fully benefited from his assistance.

Blake is one of the rare young tenor and soprano saxophonists whose roots reach back past John Coltrane. Incorporating phrasing reminiscent of Don Byas, expressed with a Coleman Hawkins-like sound, he offered a series of solos--especially via a lush rendering of “Body and Soul”--in which melodic imagination took precedence over fast-fingered note displays.

Lindner, also an inventive player, seemed a bit low-keyed for this set, most interesting on the brief occasions when he broke out into clusters of offbeat chording. And Burno, always dependable, was the ideal partner for Haynes’ understated but incisive approach to rhythm.

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* The Roy Haynes Quartet at Catalina Bar & Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Tonight at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at 10:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7:30 p.m., $18 cover. Tonight at 10:30 p.m and Sunday at 9:30 p.m., $16 cover. Saturday at 8:30 p.m., $20 cover. Two-drink minimum. (323) 466-2210.