Hewing to the Center, but Making Steady Gains

Ravi Coltrane’s live sets, for more than 10 years, have given the impression of expert navigation around landmarks that might seem indistinct to everyone in the room except the people onstage. The melody is seldom the thing; it’s more the flow of the band and its clear sense of direction. He has become a grounded tenor-saxophone player during that time, with a thicker and more focused sound in all registers. But Mr. Coltrane doesn’t go all the way into extremes. He isn’t really a deep-ballad player or a fulminator. He doesn’t impose on the audience, or not for long; he makes guarded, intricate, concise art, and at the Village Vanguard on Tuesday, in the first set of his band’s six-day run this week, the music kept its secrets intact.

Mr. Coltrane’s quartet, with the pianist Luis Perdomo, the bassist Drew Gress and the drummer E. J. Strickland, has been taking a break over much of the last year. In Tuesday’s short first set you could sense a little hesitation, and some careful pacing; the band members were settling in. In a version of Ornette Coleman’s “Tribes of New York” the whole band followed the melody’s fleeting phrases, becoming a wall of theme before swing rhythm kicked in; in “For Zoe,” a slow, solemn piece with a lot of rubato and open space, the band undertook one long climb toward a resolution; and in “Nothing Like You,” by Bob Dorough — a curio from Miles Davis’s record “Sorcerer” — Mr. Coltrane played soprano saxophone in short, clipped phrases, then shot through a fast improvisation in the middle. It wasn’t till he played a new ballad, still untitled, that Mr. Coltrane planted his flag, the music relaxed, and it became plain how good this band really is. The song had a deliberate theme, a long, moody melody that unrolled in distinct sections over ballad tempo; the band surrounded it, warming it up with subtle details.
The set closed with “One-Wheeler Will,” a fast tune with a hiccuping 11-beat meter, and cycles always restarting just before you expected them to. Mr. Coltrane darted in and out of openings in the rhythm; Mr. Strickland played complicated, churning grooves with detail and clarity. It was a quick, clean set that promised a great deal and ended a little soon; it was the kind of gig that served as a preview of how much better the music would be by the end of the week.
The Ravi Coltrane Quartet continues through Sunday night at the Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037, villagevanguard.com.
by BEN RATLIFF
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/arts/music/18ravi.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss