Trio with a West African touch

If Michael Winslow and Al Jarreau somehow traced their ancestry to Benin in West Africa, a common relative would surely have to be Lionel Loueke, a guitarist and sonic explorer. Like the American performers, Loueke loves wreaking havoc with sound, and his ability to do so intelligently also reveals an incisive sense of humor.

The versatile Loueke, who has been seen recently with Herbie Hancock, came to the Painted Bride on Saturday night with bassist Massimo Biolcati and drummer Ferenc Nemeth. Loueke's ear and need for nuance in sound were evident from the first tune, which did not follow traditional song structure but simply evolved from Loueke's electroacoustic guitar and voice.

Nemeth, like Loueke, can be an explosive musician in a subtle way. The Hungarian drummer usually allowed his counterparts to carry the proceedings while he remained in the background with his somewhat unconventional drum kit. But during his extended solos, he showed a more exhibitionist side, crackling and filling where he usually would quietly color.

The trio, which met in Europe and has been together for 10 years, sometimes sounds like an experimental European band. Bassist Biolcati, who is Italian and Swedish, atypically set the harmonic tone. With Loueke often (sometimes too often) using electronic effects to enhance the trio's ideas, it fell to Biolcati to mediate.

Africa is never far away from Loueke's thoughts. His guitar musings often are interlocked with vocal clicks, wordless notes, and interjections in Fon, a Beninois language.

When he slipped a piece of paper under his guitar strings, above the bridge, the instrument's sound lost resonance and transformed into a traditional African stringed instrument.

On the trio's last song of the evening, it worked in a pop framework that included conventions from the entire Atlantic coast of the continent, from Cape Verde to Cape Town.

As Nemeth's rudimental snare beat veered from odd meter to soukous to jive to coladeira and back, Loueke's gentle, peaceful voice provided a clean resolution for the night's uneven, but still satisfying, set.