Alfredo Rodriguez. Photograph courtesy Monterey Jazz Festival.

From the start of his late afternoon set at the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Garden Stage, Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez made it clear that his was music for serious listening. Opening with a piece that slowly coalesced from misty dispersion into a sinister pulse, Rodriguez played short phrases, then extrapolated them up and down the keyboard, repeating or embroidering, pounding away at single chords and describing intricate designs, allowing each only a brief moment of flight before moving on to the next idea.

The music grew more accessible as the set progressed, bringing a classic Cuban sound ever closer to the foreground, but Rodriguez’s intriguing trio never sacrificed its cerebral approach. “Body and Soul” opened with an extended solo by Nathan East, whose standup electric bass danced around the melody, low and introspective with few direct references to the tune. Rodriguez came in with a Thelonious Monk-inspired attack, tiptoeing through the melody and tossing in oddly shaped chords or swirling little arpeggios, then ending with a delicate run that drizzled its way to the extreme ends of the keyboard.

Drummer Francisco Mela made an excellent match for Ridriguez, fuzzing the edges of the slow numbers with quiet rumblings and hissing cymbals. When the occasion demanded more forceful rhythm, Mela responded with a complex patchwork of discrete sounds, a set of overlapping building blocks like some fantastic Legoland construction. Mela and Rodriguez kept each other on their toes: at one point they played a game of musical dodgeball, Rodriguez working the strings inside his piano, before settling into a catchy yet abstracted chugging groove.

It’s not easy to silence the outdoor Garden Stage crowd, but a hush fell over the ground within minutes, and for the next hour the quiet was broken only by enthusiastic applause… and the occasional airplane. It’s still Monterey, after all.