Bassist Bromberg and pals touch all the musical bases

In didn’t take long Friday night for Brian Bromberg to justify his reputation as the fastest-fingered jazz bassist in the West -- or the East, or beyond, for that matter. The opening set of his quintet’s three-night run at Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood was, in fact, an across-the-board display of virtuosity, from Bromberg as well as his musical associates -- tenor saxophonist Gary Meek, trumpeter Randy Brecker, keyboardist Mitch Forman and drummer Dave Weckl.

High-speed displays of technique can wear thin quickly in the world of jazz improvising. How many rapid arpeggios, scales and runs can the mind absorb, or care to absorb, in an hourlong set? But Bromberg’s playing -- most of it framed within selections from his recent CD, “Downright Upright” -- bristled with fascinating twists and turns.

In his hands, the upright was an astonishingly compliant source of sounds, rhythms and textures: double and triple stops, two-handed tapping, spot-on glissandos and note bends, finger-drumming on the wood body of his instrument, and much more, all of it at the service of enhancing the soul-styled energies of tunes such as Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island” and Bromberg’s own “The Hacha Cha Cha” and “Sunday Mornin’.”

His blend of dexterity and inventiveness was most closely matched by Meek, playing at such a high level that he sometimes concluded solos with a look of sheer surprise. As with Bromberg, Meek’s mastery of his instrument provided an impressively expanded palette -- an octave’s worth of high harmonics, funk-generating multi-phonics, painterly swirls of note-colors.

Brecker and Forman added their own imaginative flights. The veteran trumpeter -- never fully appreciated for the breadth of his skills -- delivered choruses ranging from well-crafted melodies to brilliantly fluid bursts of notes. Forman, combining electric synth sounds (at times employing full orchestral string sounds) with acoustic piano, was a monster of rhythm, driving his own solos, as well as a series of sparkling interludes, with irrepressible forward momentum.

Weckl’s multi-planed drumming pulled all the disparate elements of the Bromberg band together with his characteristic combination of sheer energy and constant swing. It was the perfect unifying factor for a set celebrating a rare jazz marriage between virtuosity and musicality.