An Uneven Evening of Brookmeyer

Valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer has been a prominent jazz presence for nearly five decades--virtually his entire adult life. Performing with Gerry Mulligan and Stan Getz in the ‘50s, Clark Terry in the ‘60s and Mel Lewis in the ‘70s, he also has surfaced frequently as a pianist, and his arrangements and compositions have consistently revealed a probing, imaginative musical curiosity.

Brookmeyer made one of his intermittent appearances in the Southland on Thursday, opening a three-night run with a quartet at the Jazz Bakery. (Next Saturday, he performs in a different setting, with the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, at the Wadsworth Theatre.)

The perennial problem faced by visiting soloists making relatively unrehearsed appearances with local musicians is the difficulty of finding musical synchronization. And Brookmeyer’s opening set, despite its many appealing aspects, frequently ran into precisely that difficulty. Endings of numbers--the uncertain termination of “You Stepped Out of a Dream,” for example--tended to diminish the high quality of the playing that had preceded them. And often, in the course of playing a piece, routines were decided in spontaneous, sometimes unexpected fashion.

There’s nothing wrong with spontaneity in jazz, of course; that is, after all, one of the music’s most vital attributes. But, in this case, the procedural uncertainties seemed distracting to the point at which the other members of the quartet--guitarist Larry Koonse, bassist Bob Hurst and drummer Mike Stephans--didn’t always deliver the high-quality playing that is generally so characteristic of their work.

Brookmeyer’s soloing was filled with the flowing, sometimes labyrinthine lines that have always been essential to his style. He was at his best when the lines coalesced into more gripping melodic motives and passages. But his performance was not enhanced by the wireless microphone attached to the bell of his trombone--a device that transmuted his tone into something sounding as though it had been passed through a wet towel.

And that was a shame, given the warm timbre usually associated with Brookmeyer’s playing. Given his infrequent visits to the area, one might have hoped for a better representation of his estimable musical craft.

The Bob Brookmeyer Quartet at the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City. Tonight at 8 and 9:30. $20 admission. (310) 271-9039.