Emotional Density Missing in Tyner Outing

Say this for McCoy Tyner: He sure knows how to draw a crowd. The veteran jazz pianist’s second appearance in less than a year at Catalina Bar & Grill Tuesday night nearly filled the room.

But despite the audience’s enthusiasm--their vigorous applause attempted, but failed, to generate an encore--it was not a prime Tyner outing. Performers who commonly work at a high level of creativity can sometimes be their own worst enemies, and Tyner is no exception. His playing has been so rich, so driven by imaginative envelope-stretching for the last three decades, that it’s difficult not to expect the very best from him at all times.

For some artists, the program’s discursive ramble through a landscape of standards and originals would have been good enough. But it was not up to the usual level of the Tyner trio (with regulars Avery Sharpe on bass and Aaron Scott on drums), which seemed more concerned with getting the first set of the week out of the way. As a result, the ensemble’s surprisingly contradictory differences in style--usually among their more creatively provocative qualities--became somewhat problematic.

Sharpe is a rapid-fire, complex player whose solos are permeated with a maze of brisk runs, quick strumming and sudden shifts of melody. Scott, on the other hand, is an upfront, energetic drummer, not unlike Elvin Jones, Tyner’s companion in the John Coltrane rhythm sections. The blending of Scott’s and Sharpe’s styles is powerfully dependent upon Tyner’s prodigious versatility. When the mix is working right, Tyner takes from one, gives to the other, and generally produces an outcome that is vastly greater than the sum of the individual parts.

But when Tyner focuses too much in one direction, as he did on Tuesday night, the mixture simply separates into its component parts. This time out, Tyner was primarily into a high-voltage, heavy chording, melodically ornamental state of mind. The result was a set with a strong piano-drums interface, but without the multilayered emotional density present when Sharpe’s bass is a prominent component in the musical blend.

Fortunately, one other thing can be said about Tyner: No two performances will ever quite be the same. And one can anticipate that the balance of his six-night run at Catalina will venture into more intrepid areas of expression.

* The McCoy Tyner Trio at Catalina Bar & Grill through Sunday. 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., (213) 466-2210. $12 cover tonight and Sunday, $14 cover Friday and Saturday, with two-drink minimum. Tyner performs two shows nightly, at 8:30 and 10:30.