Off-center, offbeat but still right on

The San Francisco Jazz Festival’s continuing -- and growing -- establishment of the Bay city as a major West Coast center for the music has now resulted in the creation of the all-star SFJAZZ Collective. The newly formed ensemble, led by tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman, made its first Los Angeles appearance Saturday night at UCLA’s Royce Hall with a program highlighted by five interpretations of works by alto saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman.

It was an appropriate, if challenging, choice. Coleman, whose radical breaks with traditional styles of jazz improvisation have made him an important innovator, has performed at the San Francisco Jazz Festival twice in the last few years -- a significant number on his now-limited appearance schedule. And the decision to showcase his sometimes thorny music for an entire half of the program offered convincing evidence of the SFJAZZ Collective’s view of jazz as “an ever-changing, ever-relevant art form.”

Coleman’s composed music -- still far too little known -- has generally received less attention than his “free jazz” playing style, which moved beyond the use of set harmonies and metric rhythms into a wide-open universe of unfettered improvisation. But works such as “Lonely Woman,” “Una Muy Bonita” and “Peace,” all in the five Coleman pieces on the program, are the product of a rich melodic imagination, a sly sense of humor and an off-center use of rhythm.

Gil Goldstein’s arrangements of the works captured all those qualities. And the soloing of Redman, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, trombonist Josh Roseman, alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon, pianist Renee Rosnes and vibist Bobby Hutcherson, ably supported by the sturdy bass playing of Robert Hurst and the brilliant drumming of Brian Blade, revealed the joys and the complexities of free improvising.

The program’s second half was devoted to original works by the Collective’s members. Zenon’s swinging, polyrhythmic “Lingala” was a standout, as was Hutcherson’s “March Madness,” in a group that also included pieces by Redman, Hurst and Rosnes. But the real stars of the evening were the vibrant Coleman music and the sheer out-of-the-box musicality of the SFJAZZ Collective.