BILL HOLMAN’S WRITE-ON WORK ETHIC

Jazz composer/arranger/bandleader/saxophonist Bill Holman’s “seek work” plan is simple: He waits for the telephone to ring with another assignment--and, sure enough, it does.

“I guess I have this thing ingrained in my mind that you get called for gigs,” the chipper jazzman said during a relaxed conversation in the Hollywood Hills home he shares with his wife, Gaye. “And, since I do, it hasn’t been tough to find outlets for my work.”

Holman--who established his reputation with inventive works like “Theme and Variations” that he wrote for Stan Kenton in the early ‘50s--sees his career as still on the upswing. “In the past few years, I’ve been writing as much as I want to. And that’s more than I ever have.

“And, I think my writing is getting better, too, though I’ll admit that some of that early Kenton stuff had an ingenuous quality, as if I didn’t know enough to be sophisticated. But after all the work I’ve put in all these years, I’m not about to say I was writing better then than now.”

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, Holman used to get lots of work crafting arrangements for big bands--from Kenton to Gerry Mulligan--and for singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee, who toured with orchestras. But as there’s currently less demand for big band charts and, as most singers have switched to small back-up groups, the 59-year-old composer now receives many assignments from overseas.

“I travel to Europe once or twice a year,” Holman said. “Some places I go, I’ll take charts I’ve already written. Others, like the Cologne, West Germany radio network, commission new pieces.

“There I write an hour of music--half originals, half stand ards--for a broadcast by their staff jazz orchestra. We usually have a special guest and we do a couple of concerts. While I’m in Europe, I often find other work in Denmark or Switzerland or somewhere. If I hustled, I probably could make my living over there.”

But Holman still has several stateside clients. The Orange County native arranges tunes for “The Tonight Show” band, writes for a few pop singers and gets an occasional film job. He recently orchestrated eight tunes for Ralph Burns’ score to Richard Pryor’s upcoming “Jo Jo Dancer.”

A call from Jack Elliot, conductor of the New American Orchestra, provided Holman with his latest commission, a jazz vehicle for tenor sax great Stan Getz to be premiered in April with the NAO.

“It will be a lengthy work, running 17 to 18 minutes,” Holman said, “and the construction, the form, is very important, so that people don’t tune out after three minutes. But in all jazz writing, the form is the key. You should know where you’re going, how you’re going to get there and how long it’s going to take you.”

Another essential of good writing is crafting the piece for the intended artist. “A lot of people tell me, ‘Oh, write whatever you want,’ but what they mean is ‘Do what I like,’ ” Holman said with a smile.”

Holman, who switched from clarinet to tenor sax in high school, started arranging 1948. He was then a student at Westlake School of Music in Hollywood, one of the first jazz vocational schools. “I’d always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to write,” he said, “and when I got to Westlake, a lot of little pieces started fitting together, and I was knocking out charts right away.” Soon, he was working for Kenton and his career was established.

While Holman made only a few LPs in the ‘50s and ‘60s leading a big band--he made many albums as a tenor saxophonist in combos led by such notables as Shelly Manne and Conte Candoli--it wasn’t until 1974 that he made appearances leading his jazz orchestra in nightclubs. Work with the band has been intermittent in the ensuing years (though the composer’s smaller 12-piece ensemble recorded “Collaborations,” a 1985 Pausa label album co-led with Charlie Shoemaker) so Holman is really looking to his next outing, when he opens a new series of big band showcases this Monday at the Hyatt on Sunset.

“Of course, we want to get out there and show off,” he said, laughing but serious. “Playing for yourself is one thing (the band rehearses every week), playing for an audience is quite another.”

Holman says he is still waiting for one phone call. “I’d really like to record my band,” he said. “It’s tough, because making a big band record is an expensive project. Every now and then, somebody falls through the cracks and says they’ll do it, but as soon as I get serious, they say ‘We can’t do it now.’ Who knows, eventually it might happen.”