Camilo Trio Gets an A in Chemistry

Pianist Michel Camilo has been on the jazz scene since the early ‘80s, when his song “Why Not?” became a hit for Manhattan Transfer. Since then he has worked as a regular with Paquito D’Rivera and led a succession of his own small ensembles.

But Camilo has never had a better band than the trio he brought to Catalina Bar & Grill on Tuesday night. Bassist Anthony Jackson and Cuban drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez--both of whom are present on Camilo’s new Telarc album “Triangulo”--interacted with Camilo with stunning fluency. True, they were working with preset arrangements on most of the numbers, but beyond the written music, there was a constant level of interplay, a sense of three players responding to one another’s every action, performing as a single, multifaceted musical entity.

It began with Camilo, whose playing blended Cuban tumbaos with McCoy Tyner-like arpeggios, brisk Ahmad Jamal-inspired chording and his own wildly energetic, two-handed multi-rhythms. His Dominican roots surfaced frequently in foot-tapping passages of merengue-pambiche rhythms--especially during a romp through “From Within,” a tune featured in the film “Calle 54.”

The bespectacled Jackson, round and smiling, enthusiastically mouthed his music lines as he played them, looking frequently toward Camilo to make eye contact, accenting important transition points with a flourish of his right hand. Hernandez, dark hair reaching to his shoulders, was equally spirited, equally connected with the others; although he played a standard jazz drum kit, he used it like a percussionist, alternating small sounds with large bombasts, adding compositional structure to the music with sudden shifts of sound and texture.

Most of the music could be traced to the new album. There was a lovely rendering of Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona’s “La Comparsa” and an electrifying tribute to Tito Puente titled “Descarga for Tito.” But high voltage aside, one of the most impressive numbers of the evening was the touching, understated ballad “Afterthought.” The contrast between the intimate quiet of this tune and the vigorous Caribbean rhythms that filled the balance of the set precisely defined the remarkable range of creativity in the fine trio’s sparkling musical chemistry.

*

The Michel Camilo Trio at Catalina Bar & Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Culver City. Tonight at 8:30 and 10:30, $18 cover. Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7:30 p.m., $25 cover. Friday and Saturday at 10:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9:30 p.m., $22 cover. Two-drink minimum. (323) 466-2210.