Kenny Burrell Leads a Swinging Fivesome

It wasn’t surprising that Kenny Burrell drew a nearly full house to Catalina Bar & Grill on Wednesday night--not generally a high-attendance evening for most music rooms. Smoothly elegant swinging has been his stock in trade since he first arrived on the Detroit jazz scene in the early ‘50s.

Tall, conservatively dressed, his fingers moving across his guitar with fluid mobility, Burrell led his sterling quintet through a mixed bag of familiar jazz lines interspersed with a few less familiar items. Typically, given his role as head of the jazz program at UCLA, he chose tunes covering the gamut of jazz, from Duke Ellington’s “Main Stem” and Billy Strayhorn’s “Rain Check” to Thelonious Monk’s “Bemsha Swing” and Milt Jackson’s “Bags’ Groove.”

Burrell’s facile playing style adapts easily to a wide range of music, appealing in some cases to fans who favor his lush romantic balladry, in others to those who prefer his easygoing way with the blues. For his opening set, the emphasis was on the groove, setting aside slow tunes in favor of briskly swinging improvisations highlighting his ability to produce crisp, well-organized sequences of melodic invention.

Burrell was matched by the superb playing of bassist Roberto Miranda. Holding his instrument in cello fashion, he was a marvel, spinning out double stops, strumming chord-like clusters, articulating his lines with the rhythmic emphasis of a horn player.

Pianist Gerald Wiggins, the ultimate rhythm-section support player, did what he always does--feeding the soloists the sort of brisk chording that springs them loose, adding his own compositionally organized choruses.

Herman Riley, kept a bit too far in the background by the sound mix, nevertheless made some impressive contributions, on both tenor saxophone and flute. And drummer Sherman Ferguson, featured on “Rain Check,” took advantage of the opportunity to display his ability to bring contrast, timbre and imagination to the too often abused art of drum soloing.

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