A warm sense of occasion surrounds this week's Village Vanguard engagement by the saxophonist Joe Lovano. The club just commemorated its 75th anniversary, another mile marker in a storied and still vital history.
And Mr. Lovano, leading the group from his most recent album, “Folk Art" (Blue Note), is celebrating something else besides: his 30th year as a Vanguard regular, stretching back to an early tenure in the esteemed house big band, which still holds court (under different leadership now) every Monday night.
But apart from a genial announcement near the middle of his first set, Mr. Lovano seemed too caught up in the action to engage in backward glances on Wednesday night. He played with his band from “Folk Art," which he calls Us Five: the pianist James Weidman, the bassist Esperanza Spalding and the drummers Francisco Mela and Otis Brown III. The group first appeared at the club a little over a year ago, before entering the studio. Since then there have been festival and concert tours, ample time for the music to hit a groove.
Or grooves, as the case may be. Us Five's most salient characteristic is the twin-engine churn of Mr. Mela and Mr. Brown, who share an ethos of alert, dynamic drumming but feel the beat in subtly different ways. In the set as on the album, their contrast was clearest during “Powerhouse," a punchy post-bop tune with Coltrane-like harmonic turns.
Mr. Lovano ranged deftly through his solo with one drummer at a time, back and forth across the stage, so that the performance began to feel like a tennis match. Mr. Brown's playing had more linear drive; Mr. Mela's suggested a swarm. Both players swung hard, with a dry, brittle tone, jackhammering at cymbals that rang out fast in the room.
For most of the set the division of labor was murkier, as the drummers played in a shifting tandem, shadowing each other's moves and plowing through the groundwork laid by Ms. Spaulding and Mr. Weidman. The effect of multiple drummers has always been to thicken and soften rhythm, blur the edges a bit. Mr. Lovano, a master of the blurred edge, seemed to savor that touch of ambiguity.
