Pianist Pasqua Showcases Originals

Mondays are generally off nights for jazz clubs, perhaps on the premise that most listeners aren’t in the mood to do more than kick back on the evening of the first day back to work. As a result, bookings of acts in major rooms usually run from Tuesday (sometimes Wednesday) through Sunday. Which makes Mondays available for one-nighters, sometimes--as in the case of the monthly Young Talent nights at Catalina Bar & Grill--as an opening for emerging players.

But Mondays can also afford the opportunity to hear more established acts reworking older material or trying out new pieces before placing them into their regular repertoire. On Monday at Catalina’s, for example, pianist Alan Pasqua, performing with a quartet that included bassist Dave Carpenter, saxophonist Bob Sheppard and drummer Mark Ferber, did precisely that, presenting an opening set of four originals, a Keith Jarrett number and a single standard, “On Green Dolphin Street.”

For some artists, a program that was strongly weighted toward originals might have served as a cure for insomnia. But Pasqua--whose dossier reaches from membership in Tony Williams’ groundbreaking Lifetime group in the mid-’70s through gigs with everyone from Joe Henderson to Sheila Jordan --is a writer with an intriguing musical agenda.

His most enticing effort was “The Move,” in which he appeared to be playfully manipulating modal material, seemingly based upon Middle Eastern scales, around surging jazz rhythms. Another new piece, “Acceptance,” surfaced as an atmospherically flowing ballad. Two other efforts were earlier compositions: “Greta,” a lovely melody dedicated to his daughter; and “Homage,” in which he skillfully balanced rapidly shifting harmonies against stage-setting ostinato pedal point segments.

Always a versatile improviser, firmly based in a Bill-Evans-out-of-bebop style, Pasqua has been expanding his palette in more colorful directions lately. In this performance, he used the keyboard to create broad brush strokes of musical color, tossing them in bright abandon against the canvas of the accompaniment. It was, for the most part, a fascinating approach, and one that bodes well for his further creative development.