FLUTIST ENJOYS HIS SOLO JAZZ FLIGHT

When Jim Walker walked out on the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he knew exactly what he was doing.

Walker, who had been with the Pittsburgh Symphony for eight years before joining the Philharmonic as co-principal flutist in 1977, wanted to focus his energies on studio work and the jazz/rock/classical fusion group Free Flight when he resigned his very lucrative post in August, 1984.

“After 15 years as a classical player, it was enough,” Walker said. “In the beginning, I felt I was playing honest, wonderfully inspiring music. But after hundreds of repetitions, it wasn’t so inspiring.”

Instead of heading up a flute section, Walker, 42, discovered he wanted to be a soloist, as he is when he plays with Free Flight, which appears Sunday, on the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series, at the Mount Lowe Historical Museum in Altadena.

“I’ve found I have a soloist’s instinct,” he said, propping himself up on his couch in the music room of his Encino home.

“I do love to be heard and I’ve found that I want to play more than two-to-three minutes of solos during a two-hour concert. I like to be the guy who’s really working out hard with two or three others. Plus, I like the challenge of improvising and playing with freshness and vitality.”

Playing with a small band--Free Flight’s other members are pianist Mike Garson, bassist Jim Lacefield and drummer Ralph Humphrey--and offering “contemporary crossover” sounds to predominantly youthful audiences gets a result that pleases Walker.

“I like the immediate involvement with an audience when you know that what’s being put out is being actively, and enthusiastically received, which isn’t always the case with a classical performance,” he said. “I love those standing ovations. That’s the bottom line for me. A check isn’t that big a deal. I really thrive on that communication.”

Though his recordings show Walker to be an exciting soloist, he thinks he still has some work to do before he’ll feel completely at home as an improviser.

“I’ve always preached that ‘the more you practiced and the better you got, the further you realized you had to go,’ and I’m finding this to be true,” he said. “I’m probably less satisfied in terms of how far I have to go, but I’m very happy that I’m working as a soloist.”

Walker, who has a remarkable technical fluency, feels that if he has a weak point, it’s that “I’m not as spontaneous as I’d like to be,” he said. “A lot of times I’ll play a lot of notes, when I should be playing less. So, my current campaign is to slow down.

“Technical playing can be a trap,” he continued. “For someone with good facility, when you’re under stress, the automatic reaction is to revert to wiggling your fingers and blowing faster and faster, as if to say, ‘Well, at least something is coming out.’ It’s like a baseball player, when his swing goes off, to swing harder, because his timing is a little off.

“Basically, I want to put forth a buoyant, happy spirit from the stage, and I’m hoping that’s what comes across to the listener, not some unbelievable coordination between four virtuosi. I want the audience to be uplifted, and the more I relax, the more that happens.”

Walker--who describes Free Flight’s music as alternately “high- energy new age, pop-jazz and classical adaptations”--calls himself an “American flute player.” “I’m one of those guys that grew up exposed to a lot of different musics, and if I spent enough time playing them, they’d become part of my style.”

Along with elements of jazz, pop, rock and the classics, Walker’s style also prominently spotlights “the classical sound of the flute,” he said. “A close listen will tell you I’ve had classical training. That’s my strong suit, making a warm sound and playing warm melodies on the flute.”

Though the major portion of his career has been in classical situations, Walker grew up “in an area of Kentucky where there wasn’t an orchestra nearby and my parents didn’t have a lot of classical music around,” he said. “I was really raised hearing the great standards, like ‘Stella By Starlight’ and ‘Stardust.’ It was only later, when I was at music camps, that I found I had an attraction for classical music.”

Although Walker has not appeared with a major symphony since he left the Philharmonic, he has not abandoned the classical realm. He makes occasional festival appearances, as at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Ore., and Music From Angel Fire, near Taos, N. M.

While he makes the bulk of his living in the studios, playing on scores such as the recent NBC miniseries, “A Year in the Life,” Walker says his heart is with Free Flight, which presently tours about two-to-three months a year and whose most recent LP is “Illumination”(CBS). “This music comes closer to the type of music I like to make and listen to than anything I’ve done so far.”