If someone is a newcomer to jazz, where would you direct him to begin? Miles? Ellington? Armstrong? Mehldau? For my money, forget about artists, and start with years. 1959. Any album, whether it was by Miles Davis or Sammy Davis Jr, was a knockout. Blindfolded, picking a session from that year will result in music that inspired bassist Luther Hughes to record albums dedicated to the ships-in-the-night meetings between John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. Albums like Kind Of Blue and Cannonball and Coltrane were the impetus for Hughes to develop a band dedicated to focusing on that period and style of music.
Residing in LA, Hughes reflects on his own musical initiation process; “I heard a jazz band play in my high school in Cincinnati, Ohio. Something clicked, and the bass just called to me. So, I went up to the bass player afterwards, and I said, “I want to play jazz like that!” I remember that he answered, “Kid, first you got to study how to play the bass as an instrument, and then we’ll talk about jazz later.” That was the approach that Alex Cirin took with me. He was originally from back east, and played with Marian McPartland and Woody Herman’s band and was just a wonderful man as well a great teacher. After that I auditioned and auditioned and got into the College Conservatory of Music iat the University of Cincinnati, where I studied with a great classical player, Thomas Martin, who was with the Cincinnati Orchestra at that time and afterwards went through the ranks of all of the great orchestras of the world.”
From there, Hughes imbibed music from the halls that became the root and foundation of jazz, the church. One of his first gigs, he remembers, was “with my friend Roy Merriwether back in Dayton, Ohio. His dad was the preacher at The First Thessalonian Baptist Church. Every once in awhile, the trio I was in would play at Roy’s church, and it was an all black church, and was the first time that I had the experience of playing that kind of music and backing a really serious and authentic gospel choir. It was a joyous jubilation! The spirit was there, and it was a lot of fun!”
Consequently, Hughes’ new found knowledge of church inspired music not only lead him to his next musical path, but taught him a valuable lesson, “Ye receive not because ye ask not.” With the confidence of youth, Hughes’ next logical step was the soul jazz trio. “When I first started playing bass back in Cincinnati, I think it was our high school band director brought in a Gene Harris record with The Three Sounds; Andy Simpkins on bass and Bill Dowdy on drums. One time they came to town at a place called The Living Room, and I’d go and listen to them. I idolized that trio. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Then, after I had got out of the Army (I was in the Army band for three years), I got back and while started working some in Cincinnati, Gene came through town again. I was way more brash than I should have been. I just went right up to him and said, (with bassist Henry Franklin in the band and watching all this..) “I’d really like to play with you, and I think I kind of play like the bass player you have now.”
Maybe, a year or so later, I got a call from Gene, and he wanted to hire me. It was kind of crazy, because we had never played together! I didn’t think much about it at the time, because I was too young and green. Later, I told him, “Gene, that was the dumbest think I ever heard of. Why would you do that? I would NEVER have hired a guy like that? “ He just laughed, “I had a feeling about you. I had asked around and knew you had played with Roy Merriwether. The word on the street was that you were a talented young guy.” Funny thing was that after I had played with him for awhile, he told me, “You weren’t quite what I had hoped!” But, we hit it off so well, that he kept me. He told, “You were the worst ‘best’ bass player I ever had.””
The bopping-bible roots got deeper, as did Hughes’ moxie. “And after I got drawn to Gene Harris and the Three Sounds, “ Hughes recalls, “I then discovered the Oscar Peterson Trio with Ray Brown. Ray then became my new bass Idol; and he still is. I met him when I first saw him before when I heard him in a club with Oscar in Cincinnati. I went up to Ray and told him, “When I play, I get a blister on my right hand, and here on my left hand, where it hurts.” He just chuckled, and said, “Well, just keep going, and that will get better.” When I was working with Gene, I remember we were playing a jazz festival in Kansas City, and I got to chat with him some there. When I stopped travelling with Gene (because my young family needed me at home some more), I called Ray, and once again being rather brash, I said, “Remember me? I’m not travelling with Gene anymore. So, I’m available if you have any work for me.” Can you imagine having the guts to have Ray Brown for a job, like “Hey, I’ll sub for you?!?”
“Well, bless his heart; he asked if I was working New Years Eve (this was in November). I said, No. He asked, “Do you want to work in Louie Bellson’s band at the Coconut Grove with Pearl Bailey?” Of course, I did, and Louie liked the way I played. What a band that was. Joe Pass was the guitar player! It was a band from heaven; in fact he’s in heaven now! Louie liked the way I played, and Ray called me one day and said, “I don’t have time to pursue that band. Louie said it’s your gig if you want it. “ I said, “Oh Yeah!” Ray also had me sub for him with Quincy Jones band at the Astrodome with Nancy Wilson.”
Luther now laughs at the his youthful brashness, but as the saying goes, ‘Better the error of enthusiasm than the indifference of age.” “It paid off,” he admits, “ but looking back, it’s like someone should have grabbed me by the collar and said, “Hey, who do you think you are?” But, youth will do that to you.”
Hughes inspiration for Adderley’s soul jazz goes back to his early days as a jazz fan, to recordings from…you guessed it…1959! “The first stuff I heard of Cannonball’s was the Jazz Workshop period. That’s why I recorded our version of “Jive Samba.” If you look at the things I’d chosen on our second cd…we did an arrangement of “Work Song,” so the stuff from that period was the biggest jazz influence on me. I guess they call it the Hard Bop period.”
Not only did Adderley’s music impress Hughes, but also the alto icon’s in between sermonettes had an effect on the bassist.
When I first heard his Live At The Club album, where Cannonball did “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” and I just liked the way that he talked and introduced. I don’t know if you know, but the “club” is actually just a recording studio. They just invited a bunch of friends in. When I found this out a few years later, I felt like I had been bamboozled. “Hey, that’s not a real club!”
I later heard Cannonball’s band when I was with the army band in Germany, and he would do that talking. I then realized years later that he did that because he used to be an educator, and taught in , school, so he was used to doing that. And Gene would do that also. He loved to talk to the audience. So, I wound up getting a degree in music, and I’ve been doing some teaching as well. What do they call it? “Adjunct Professor?” Which means part time teacher! So, now, I’m used to talking to the students and explaining stuff so, I guess I enjoy it so much because of Cannonball and Gene.
I think it brings the audience together. If I’m going to an art museum, I try to do some research on the art that I’m going to be looking at, so I can get a much deeper appreciation for it. I find that your average jazz audience are not professional musicians, so they don’t understand a lot of things like fours, eights and how improvisation is done. They think it’s some magical thing, but it’s not. For instance, last night we played the cut Bruce Babad wrote for our latest cd, called “Primrose Star.” I explained to the audience that the song’s inspiration really came from Cannonball Adderley playing “Stars Fell On Alabama.” I told them, “that’s what this song really is. This idea became popular in the bebop era when education circles, it’s known as a “contrafact.” Right behind me on stage, our drummer Paul Kreibach, says, “You mean stealing.” So I turned back to the audience and told them that Paul reminded me of the other term for it!”
As for his creation of the Cannonball-Coltrane project that has produced 3 discs (the latest,”Things Are Getting Better” is up to number 5 on the jazz charts!), Hughes explains its simple genesis. “My buddy, Glenn Cashman (who hired me at Cal State Fullerton when he was the director at jazz studies)was the director of Jazz Studies at Colgate University, and he had me coming out to visit him. So, I figured he’s going to want to play something when we’re together. I was trying to figure out what to have us play, when I thought about the Cannonball Adderley album in Chicago from February 1959, and thought, “Hey, it would be fun to do those arrangements.” So, I called Bruce and a rhythm section and asked if they were up to doing it, as we weren’t going to have time to rehearse. They each said, “Oh, I’ve got that album and love that thing! I’ll learn my own individual part.” That’s what we did, and at the gig we finally got together and played it. I billed it as a tribute to Cannonball and Coltrane, because that particular album, when I first saw it and bought it, it was titled (that way). “
“That first gig was just a tribute to them, and then when we decided to record, we just called it the Cannonball Coltrane Project. We had a big turnout and the people went nuts for it that night. So, I thought, maybe we could do it again. Then the President of the Orange County Performing arts told us that he flipped over the music, and asked us to play at the Performing Arts Center. We had about 8 arrangements for the first album, and we realized that we had to have some new stuff as well. I decided that the new direction would be to do music that was inspired by these guys, individually or collectively from things like their work with Miles Davis, and opened up to several lifetimes of possibilities. We try to make the tunes our own, however, we don’t want to copy them. We just want to honor their memory by showing us their legacy and how they’ve influenced us and countless others. “
Hughes is pleased with the success of the band, but keeps it in perspective, “
It debuted at 46, then it went to 14, and now it’s at #5! If I knew how and why it was popular, I’d duplicate it on every cd and I’d be the busiest record producer in Hollywood!” Hopefully, with the popularity of this band, Hughes and his band mates can agree with the title of Adderley’s popular song, that, indeed, things are getting better.