San Francisco Classical Voice

The group calls itself a "genre-busting" venture in "urban classical music." "Genre-bending" is more accurate: The Imani adapts and builds upon typical wind quintet practices. For instance, its repertoire is mostly new or modern music, but the genre itself is largely a late 20th century phenomenon. Practically every wind ensemble specializes in contemporary repertoire. To spice up this otherwise thorny selection, the Imani develops pieces representing the African diaspora, which turn out to be relatively conservative arrangements of music from all walks of life.

The exotic-looking program at Herbst opened with jazz standard Afro Blue by Mongo Santamaria, as arranged by their flutist and founder, Valerie Coleman. Also included were her arrangement of Steal Away, a traditional spiritual; Astor Piazzolla's Oblivion, in an arrangement by the group's horn player, Jeff Scott; and Manuel De Falla's Four Spanish Pieces for piano, this in an arrangement by Wayne Peterson. The encore was Coleman's Umoja, the group's signature piece, and a beautiful evocation of African drumming and chant.

Yet when French-hornist Scott planted his feet at center stage and opened the concert with a perfectly lovely soliloquy for Afro Blue, his introspective and soulful tone sounded as apt for a Brahms sonata as anything else. Only the somewhat coarse tones of his colleagues, who had the disadvantage of playing while walking onto the stage, adjusted the ear to a jazzier mood. This opener was fun but too contrived to feel like jazz or classical. Similarly, the Piazzolla sounded less like a bandoneon-based tango ensemble than a mellifluous organ — which is how wind quintets tend to sound. Nor did Peterson's arrangement evoke a guitar, as Falla's steamy piano original does, as much as an efficiently lyrical … well, wind quintet.

And no one should want the Imani Winds to sound like anything else. They gave a bravura performance of John Harbison's Quintet for Winds. The weight and ebb and flow in the central romanza was exemplary, with sweetly sung solos by oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz. The playful running notes of the scherzo were deftly passed from instrument to instrument, and clarinetist Mariam Adam's jokey solo in the last movement was nicely judged, mocking but pleasantly jazzy.

Harbison tends to stretch melodies beyond regular bounds of phrasing — across instruments, sonorities, and time signatures. Despite that, the Imani sustained the music as easily as in Piazzolla and Santamaria. The group has virtuosity to burn — particularly obvious in the nimble finger and tongue work of the Schifrin — and a penchant for moving the music along effortlessly (and, come to think of it, delivering the spoken introductions succinctly and eloquently).

Aside from some horn tuning that went astray here and there, in the first half in particular, the Six Bagatelles of György Ligeti did expose the only significant technical caveats to the concert. While the first bagatelle skipped along crisply, the dissonances of the second were a little sour (though the feel of rubato was subtly achieved). Meanwhile, in the third bagatelle, the solo flute had an attractively cool composure, but the movement as a whole wasn't quite able to soar weightlessly, as it does in some performances.

The textures often glinted attractively, but the blends and attacks didn't always produce the kind of tonal solidity that orchestral wind players hone with obsession. Something — perhaps the acoustic or a lack of attention to tone coloring — mitigated against the group effect. Throughout the concert, the Imani rarely projected the dark and rich sonorities that make a wind quintet such a special combination. One hopes that this wasn't a compromise in the name of all the other virtues this entertaining ensemble shows. Taking a path away from the classical ideals of good sound would seem to be a mistake. With its communicative stage presence, lively repertoire, and youthfully brazen chops, the Imani Winds seemed to have it all but that last bit of polish that marks a great wind quintet.