Eskovitz’s sax teaches lessons

Saxophonist Bruce Eskovitz disproves the adage, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” A full-time lecturer at USC, where he directs the Concert Jazz Ensemble and teaches theory and jazz saxophone, Eskovitz also has an active career as a performer.

Although he has played and/or recorded with artists including Natalie Cole, Dwight Yoakam, Freddie Hubbard and Joe Williams, Eskovitz currently devotes most of his creative energy to the nine-piece band he calls BEJO (for the Bruce Eskovitz Jazz Orchestra). On Tuesday at Lunaria, the group’s lively mix of standards and originals immediately made it clear why their performances have become a weekly staple at the restaurant.

Eskovitz’s arrangements and compositions blend the sunshine harmonies and cool counterpoint of the West Coast small bands of the ‘50s and ‘60s with a grooving, contemporary rhythm section style. Further enlivening the set, his renditions of others’ music took consistently off-center tacks, shifting rhythms here, deconstructing melodies there.

BEJO’s players -- including Eskovitz -- fleshed out the charts with attractive soloing. The best efforts traced to the fluid, imaginative improvising of trumpeter Steve Huffsteter, who was sitting in for the evening and -- amazingly -- sight-reading the music for the entire set.

The only problem with this otherwise attractive evening of well-crafted mainstream jazz traced to the imbalance of sound in Lunaria’s relatively small performance room. Too often, the electric instruments and drums dominated the audio mix, frequently obscuring the colorful horn textures.

Still, Tuesday nights with BEJO at Lunaria remain one of the only week-in, week-out opportunities for jazz fans to hear a straight-ahead, briskly swinging little-big band in action.

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Bruce Eskovitz

Where: Lunaria, 10351 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A.

When: 9 and 11 p.m. Tuesdays

Price: No cover

Info: (310) 282-8870