Colley trio’s Potter soars on sax

Great jazz improvisers are born, not made. There are plenty of players on the current scene who, through hard work and practice, have made themselves into facile, even virtuosic improvisers. But there are far fewer whose music, despite their fast-fingered technique, comes from a place of pure imagination.

One of the growingly visible members of that highly exclusive fraternity is tenor saxophonist Chris Potter. And his performance with the Scott Colley Trio on Thursday at the Jazz Bakery provided a stunning affirmation of his unique musical skills.

Potter has the speed and articulateness to play just about anything that surfaces in his ever-probing musical mind. But even while spinning through the most wide-open, harmonically unstructured musical environments, his improvisational lines were always driven by a connected musical flow.

The sort of freely improvised jazz that dominated most of the evening’s selections can have the tendency to trigger turbulent arpeggios, scales, honks and multiphonics. But not for Potter. While he did not hesitate to dig into the most turbulent resources of his instrument, he did so via melodic sequences, phrasing that breathed with sounds and silences, and a passionate intensity that drew his listeners into the many levels of his improvisational energy.

Potter played one marathon solo after another. In the case of Charles Mingus’ “Boogie Stop Shuffle,” he spiced his phrases with leaping, funk-driven accents perfectly appropriate for the piece. He also played wildly expressive duets with drummer Antonio Sanchez. In each case, his capacity to generate one spontaneously inventive idea after another, and link them together via sequencing, paraphrasing and emotional layering, was utterly mesmerizing.

Longtime associates Colley and Sanchez established powerful launching platforms for Potter’s excursions. But they also added their own prime soloing as well. Colley played with his characteristic combination of warm tone and astonishingly fast note production. And Sanchez ranged from whisper-soft ticks on his cymbals to Elvin Jones-like tsunami waves of percussion. Together, they created a stunning evening of music -- an experience that should be on every jazz fan’s pre-Christmas list.

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Scott Colley Trio with Chris Potter and Antonio Sanchez

Where: Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City

When: 8 and 9:30 p.m. today and Sunday

Price: $30

Contact: (310) 271-9039