A devil-may-care turn from the iconic Rollins

Sonny Rollins has reached what the French would call his troisieme age in impressive fashion. The veteran tenor saxophone player, at 77 one of the few remaining iconic figures of the post-bebop era, is investing his later years with a devil-may-care improvisational adventurousness.

Arriving onstage at the Cerritos Center on Saturday night, Rollins, apparently suffering from arthritic problems, walked stiffly, at times with seeming discomfort. But he held out his shiny horn with indisputable magisterial control.

Wasting no time on announcements, acknowledgments or even counting off the rhythm, he simply began to play, setting the time with his own crisp articulation, directing the responses of his quintet -- trombonist Clifton Anderson, guitarist Bobby Broom, bassist Bob Cranshaw, drummer Kobie Watkins and percussionist Kimati Dinizulu -- with expressive body movements and gestures.

The first tune, title unannounced, lasted nearly 20 minutes. The second, a similarly unidentified ballad, lasted nearly that long. But each unfolded in unique fashion, shaped by Rollins’ musical desires of the moment. As the program proceeded, he became more mobile, occasionally approaching the edge of the stage to direct his notes at one particular segment of the room or another.

Rollins’ solos -- which ranged from long, extended inventions to duet interactions with other players as well as brief directive passages to move the ensemble forward -- were the stuff of artistic maturity. Unlike the reductiveness of, say, late Picasso drawings, with their diminution of grand ideas to minimalist lines, Rollins’ explorations were often startlingly expansive.

Although he once tended to remain tonally and thematically oriented, his current soloing -- at least at the Cerritos Center -- revealed an expanded vision that enthusiastically embraced the free-flying methods more closely associated with John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.

It was an augmentation that often worked in fascinating fashion. Rollins’ playing on one of his characteristically exuberant Caribbean-style pieces, for example, was enhanced by the juxtaposition of buoyant melodic fragments with sudden dashes of bright, explosive, Jackson Pollack-like musical colors.

But there were problems too. Rollins’ move into the Coltrane-Coleman universe sometimes seemed unexpectedly reductive, especially when its effect was diminished by his surprisingly blurry fingering.

His tenor saxophone sound -- once one of the most virile expressions in jazz -- also has lost some of its penetrating intensity. And he appeared, at times, more willing to reach for crowd-pleasing repetitions than he might have in earlier years.

Flaws or not, the ultimate result was a compelling display of still-vital musical artistry.