JAZZ REVIEW : Quintet in a Hard Bop Groove

Man for man, the Harper Brothers Quintet, a group formed four years ago by the drummer Winard Harper, 27, and trumpeter Philip Harper, 24, introduced Tuesday evening at Catalina’s, is the most brilliant new jazz group of the new decade.

The age at which greatness in jazz musicians emerges seems to have diminished steadily over the years. Justin Robinson, on alto sax, and Kevin Hayes, the pianist, are even more astonishing than the leaders. Both are 21. Robinson’s sound is strong, his rhythmic nuances are personal and potent. Hayes, when not limning out illustrious single note lines, manages to find dissonances and chordal combinations you didn’t know existed. Finally there is the dependable bassist, Eric Lemon, 30.

With its two-man front line of trumpet and alto sax, the group is patterned stylistically after the hard bop groups of the 1950s and ‘60s. Yet this is by no means a nostalgia trip. These men bring their own prospective to values that are timeless.

Various writers inside and outside the group have supplied the themes, which are modestly attractive jumping off points for the strings of solos. In the finale, Winard Harper contributed an ingenious solo, partly on the rims of his snares, then with sticks on the high-hat cymbal.

The group offers an example of the extent to which unhyphenated, acoustic jazz has persevered in an era of funk, rock and fusion. The quintet closes Saturday.