Acoustics Mar Rumba Club Debut

It’s not exactly news that the acoustics of the Jazz Bakery do not favor drummers. A few players--Roy McCurdy, Tootie Heath and Roy Haynes come to mind--have managed to tune their instruments and their playing styles to make the most of the room’s cavernous reverberations. But far more have not.

So imagine the problems facing the Rumba Club on Thursday night, when the nine-piece band arrived and placed its four percussionists in a front line across the stage. The Baltimore-based Latin jazz ensemble has released four CDs on the Palmetto label, and their live performances have received consistently laudatory reviews.

But it’s a safe bet that they’ve never experienced the sort of clattery sound environment that they will continue to encounter, through Sunday night, at the Bakery.

And that’s a shame, since the Rumba Club’s music--at least what one could tell of the music through the muddy sound--offered some dynamic qualities. The group, which also includes a three-man horn section, placed crisply articulated jazz passages over a torrent of Latin rhythms.

The resultant spicy mixture was further enhanced by occasionally lush, frequently dissonant jazz harmonies and rhythmic references embracing everything from rumba and salsa to cha-cha and the Puerto Rican bomba .

Well-crafted compositions and arrangements included trumpeter Alexander Pope Norris’ “Fortitude” and “Ontology,” percussionist Jim Hannah’s “Baltonimo” and a lovely rendering of Wayne Shorter’s “Infant Eyes.” Norris, handling many of the solos, was the band’s most adventurous improviser, and the four-man percussion team--in a few collective improvisation passages--offered a taste of what it must be like to experience a full-blown, properly heard Rumba Club performance.

Unfortunately, their Los Angeles debut appearance, despite its many attractive qualities, has turned out to be a case of the right band in the wrong venue.

The Rumba Club at the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City. Tonight and Sunday at 8 and 9:30 p.m. $20. (310) 271-9039.