Potter's jamming is easy listening

Chris Potter suffers from Ménière's disease, a condition that has cost him nearly all of the hearing in his left ear. Performing Saturday at Chris' Jazz Cafe in Center City, the tenor saxophonist demonstrated that one ear could do the work of two, and then some, before a packed house.

Potter, 39, appeared with the Chris Potter Underground, a quartet he formed in 2004. Doing nothing apparent to compensate for the hearing loss, Potter stood between Craig Taborn's Fender Rhodes electric piano and guitarist Adam Rogers. Drummer Nate Smith pounded away just behind them on the small stage.

A vast knowledge of jazz was unnecessary - just an appreciation for the twists and turns characterizing music that segued in the free-form manner of a jam session. The group performed only five tunes in 75 minutes during the first of two sets, but it had no trouble sustaining its intensity or resolve.

Opening with "Underground," Potter displayed his bright, buoyant tone for a full 12 minutes, first over the funky groove Taborn coaxed from his keyboard, followed by chords played in surprisingly straight fashion.

Potter introduced "Flight to Oslo" unaccompanied before playing a riff that signaled the rhythm section to join in. He broke up the syncopated melody and traded licks with Rogers' Telecaster guitar before the band slowed the tempo and then stopped playing.

But Potter continued, soon introducing Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood," a ballad he performed unaccompanied and as a short duet with Rogers. His reading differed from the rest of the material, incorporating vibrato and other hallmarks that recalled his allegiance to more conventional jazz.

The group closed out the set with "Tweet," a heavily syncopated composition suggesting Thelonious Monk and Frank Zappa. The tricky chart began with a groove and a series of drones. Potter's animated solo hinted at blues before climbing high into his horn's altissimo register; he exchanged riffs with the rhythm section en route to a dramatic finale.

To the Underground's credit, and especially Potter's, the group never lacked direction or ran short of ideas, even though much of what it played sounded unscripted.