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B Sharp Jazz Quartet

 ((Catalina Bar & Grill; 105 seats; $ 12 top) *)

By RICHARD S. GINELL

The first thing to realize about this group (which records for the locally based MAMA label) is that its identity is collective; everyone is about on the same level of technical and artistic competence, and no one member stands out as a star.
 

Presented inhouse. Band: Randall Willis, Rodney Lee, Osama Afifi, Herb Graham Jr. Reviewed Nov. 21, 1995. It's gratifying to watch Los Angeles' own B Sharp Jazz Quartet develop and flourish on the job. While there was nothing innovative about the music in its opening set at Catalina's, there's a pervasive feeling that this young quartet is growing and learning together, exploring its mainstream idioms with an infectious ebullience. The B Sharp still operates mostly within the circa-1965, neo-bop mainstream bounds established by the Wynton Marsalis cartel in the 1980s.

Yet they have developed a remarkably tighter rapport in the last year-and-a-half, swinging more solidly and with greater muscularity and combustion.

They can surprise, too; "Like This" began innocuously enough in an Atlantic-period Coltrane manner but came to a smashing climax.

Saxman Randall Willis commands plenty of soul but he's careful not to teeter over the top into crowd-pleasing screeching. Pianist Rodney Lee was in a mostly ruminative mood on this night, the opposite of Herb Graham Jr.'s splashy and nicely unpredictable drumming.

Even though bassist Osama Afifi has been with the group only two months, he fit comfortably into the interplay and contributed some dancing solos of his own.