Jimmy Cobb Expands His Act at Village Vanguard Jacob Blickenstaff for The New York Times Jimmy Cobb Quartet Javon Jackson, left, and Mr. Cobb are at the Village Vanguard with the pianist Tadataka Unno and the bassist Paolo Benedettini. The urge toward retrospection runs strong among jazz musicians of a certain age, and to resist it requires stern commitment. But there's also a way to be stubborn about honoring the past and its pull, making no disclaimers and leaving nothing to conjecture. The drummer Jimmy Cobb, 84, is a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and the last remaining musician to have played on "Kind of Blue," the epochal Miles Davis album from 1959. Mr. Cobb's career as a sideman also encompassed consequential work with the guitarist Wes Montgomery, the pianist Wynton Kelly and many others, reaching peak productivity in the "60s but hardly faltering since. Within the last decade, you might have seen him at the helm of one tribute or another, carrying a forthright agenda; a few years ago he headlined at a New York club with something called Jimmy Cobb's Reminiscence Band. That isn't how he's being billed at the Village Vanguard this week, but it could be, judging by Wednesday night's well-attended first set, which was broadcast on WBGO in Newark, 88.3 FM, and archived on NPR's Web site. Mr. Cobb had originally been booked with a trio - featuring a deferential young Japanese pianist, Tadataka Unno, and an alert Italian bassist, Paolo Benedettini - and that's apparently how the engagement began, on Tuesday. By Wednesday Mr. Cobb had added a regular compatriot, the saxophonist Javon Jackson, giving the group a welcome heft but possibly diminishing its sense of purpose. During the set's first half, at least, Mr. Unno vanished into the act of accompaniment, playing so tentatively that he almost seemed to be asking for permission. Mr. Jackson had his own hangups, addressing the standard "My Shining Hour" with a rote evocation of John Coltrane from the late-"50s, when he recorded the tune. Laying hard into a ride cymbal, with punchy asides on his snare, Mr. Cobb was like a tugboat pulling a barge. His time feel hasn't changed substantially in 50 years, which would be a problem if he weren't fully in command of its great undercurrent. So while his playing can suggest its own tribute, it also continues to be a living language. And in more self-assured company he knows how to get away with tackling "Trane's Blues" and "If I Were a Bell" in the exact arrangements that Miles Davis recorded. Here that decision was dispiriting, mainly (again) because Mr. Unno and Mr. Jackson couldn't transcend a historical idea. Where the set turned for the better was with a ballad, "You Don't Know What Love Is," that brought out some crisp, unmannered lines from Mr. Unno. Then came an act of reminiscence in the truest sense: a version of "Bolivia" offered in tribute to its composer, the pianist Cedar Walton, who died this week. Mr. Benedettini handled the tune's introductory vamp with style, and every solo that followed was enlivened, even urgent. It was also a good reminder that for someone like Mr. Cobb, jazz history isn't a shapeless abstraction. Even when it's business, it's personal. The Jimmy Cobb Quartet performs through Sunday at the Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village, (212) 255-4037, villagevanguard.com.