Pizzi, Huffsteter Romp Through Inventive Set

New York is the destination of choice for most jazz musicians, the compact, high-intensity arena in which to test one’s skills and compete with the finest.

But Southern California--despite its more relaxed ambience and expansive geography--is filled with world-class players. Although their visibility suffers from the need to make a living by recording and playing in film orchestras, their improvisational skills remain first rate.

On Friday at an attractive new jazz room, Fitzgerald’s in Woodland Hills, multi-woodwind instrumentalist Ray Pizzi and trumpeter/flugelhornist Steve Huffsteter romped through a set of material that was inventively engaging, rhythmically upbeat and brimming with musical wit and whimsy. Both appeared as featured artists with the venue’s resident ensemble--pianist John Hammond’s trio.

Although attendance was light for the opening sets (the Lakers and the Kings were battling through the sixth game of their epic playoff series), the music--energized by the ebullient, wise-cracking Pizzi-- was first rate.

Blending the experience of veterans with a still-youthful enthusiasm for improvisation, the players moved easily from one spontaneously selected tune after another. Most were standards--”Alone Together,” “Nancy With the Laughing Face,” “It Could Happen to You,” “Stella by Starlight” among them--the sort of tunes that accomplished jazz artists probably can play in their sleep.

But in Pizzi’s hands, in particular, the music came to life.

Constantly in search of an imaginative approach, he frequently turned to the other players, signaling on-the-spot shifts of emphasis. On “Alone Together,” for example, he dug into a passionately rhythmic soprano saxophone and drums exchange; on “Sweet Lorraine” he romped through the familiar line on his own, sketching out the chords, whipping through fiery upper register runs; and on Clare Fischer’s lovely “Pensativa,” he joined his soprano saxophone with Huffsteter’s fluegelhorn in a lovely, floating, samba-tinged melodic statement.

Pizzi’s interaction with Huffsteter, in fact, was another of the evening’s pleasant aspects, with Huffsteter’s cool-toned lines providing an ideal contrast to Pizzi’s heated expressiveness. The confident, briskly swinging, harmonically lush accompaniment and sturdy rhythmic support of the Hammond trio provided the final pieces in a well-crafted set of impressive Southland jazz.