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Steve Lehman: the shape of jazz to come.

Steve Lehman Trio
8:30 & 10 p.m. Oct. 9. Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St. 203-785-0468, firehouse12.com.

The world of jazz has always had its share of egghead technicians, wild-eyed experimentalists and moldy-fig guardians of tradition. The different camps don’t generally play from the same score. The young saxophonist and composer Steve Lehman is the unusual figure who seems to have an affinity for all three perspectives.

Lehman pays tribute to the Wu-Tang Clan on his most recent record. He’s composing a string quartet to be premiered next year. He frequently performs solo using sax and interactive electronics. He teaches at Columbia University, where he’s also working toward a doctorate in music composition. Lehman, who spoke with the Advocate recently by phone, cites the “history of hybridity” in the music of Ellington and Scott Joplin as both an inspiration and a precedent for the kind of genre-collapsing explorations that he makes in his music.

He plays jazz, yes — he was a Charlie Parker fanatic at 10, and studied with Connecticut saxophone giants Anthony Braxton and the late Jackie McLean — but he also works extensively in what’s called “spectrum music,” which is an approach that pays special attention to the physical properties of sound, employing microtonal tunings to make compositions and improvisations based more on hertz and frequencies than on the traditional intervals of western harmony.

Lehman brings his trio to New Haven’s Firehouse 12 on Oct. 9. He describes work with the trio — which features drummer Damion Reid and Chris Tordini on bass — as a way to “focus on these relationships that I’ve been developing over the years with these musicians.” Finding compatable players and forward-thinking improvisers can be a challenge. “It’s taken me several years living in New York to find my community of peers and colleagues and like-minded musicians,” he says. “I had to work to find these people.”

Growing up in Hartford, Lehman capitalized on the wealth of jazz educators in the state. Lehman went to Wesleyan, where he studied and performed with Braxton. Meanwhile, he attended McLean’s sax seminars at Hartt. Braxton and McLean urged students to “find a personal music,” says Lehman. And so he was able to soak up techniques, theories and inspiration while also being propelled to seek his own voice as a player and composer.

“When you’re working with someone who puts forth that kind of outlook it’s very freeing to take a bunch of information from them and use it in the service of a music that hopefully doesn’t have that much of a resemblance to theirs on the surface level,” says Lehman.

Listening to Lehman’s music, particularly to his exciting new record, Travail, Transformation, and Flow, the analogies from visual arts come to mind. The microtonal harmonies and unusual paired timbres (vibes and tuba, for instance) can make one think of the paintings of Josef Albers, who explored the ways that our perception of colors changed in different contexts and settings.

Lehman’s compositions often achieve a kind of beguiling surface calm, with pensive monochromatic dabs of sound serving as a backdrop for more detailed pointilistic soloing. That’s not to say that the music isn’t without its bite and skronk.

Now 31, Lehman says he’s found it easier as the years go by to synthesize the disparate elements of his musical spectrum.

“In moving in different musical areas, I feel like I’m standing on a lot of people’s shoulders,” he says. “I feel like I’ve gotten better at being genuine with my intentions as I’ve gotten older.”