Jacquet, 66, Still Generates Excitement

Swimming against the tide is a task not undertaken without powerful motivation. Jean Baptiste Illinois Jacquet knew that this was precisely what he would be doing when, in 1983, he resolved to form a full-fledged orchestra.

Six years later and four decades after the purported death of the big band era, the Illinois Jacquet Orchestra is still among us, as will be evident when all 17 men, now on their first West Coast tour, show up Tuesday for a five-night stand at Catalina’s in Hollywood, followed by an appearance June 18 at the Playboy Festival.

“It’s always been sort of a vision for me,” said the 66-year-old tenor saxophonist. “As a child I grew up around big bands; I played and danced with my father’s band, and with school bands in Houston, so they’ve always been second nature to me.”

The crucial point was reached during his senior year in high school, when Count Basie passed through town. “Basie had these two great saxophonists, Lester Young and Herschel Evans. The whole thing really turned my life around.”

From school Jacquet graduated to a territory band led by Milton Larkin, a legendary figure whose sidemen also included Eddie (Cleanhead) Vinson and Arnett Cobb. Another territory band was that of Floyd Ray, with whom Jacquet traveled to Los Angeles in 1941.

“I thought it would be an escape from Texas segregation when I decided to settle in L.A., but it turned out they had two separate musicians’ unions out here, so there was nothing I could do but join the all-black local.

“Every Labor Day, they’d have a big parade down Central Avenue, winding up with a jam session at the Union. I was lucky; at that first session I played with the greatest rhythm section imaginable--Nat King Cole on piano, Charlie Christian on guitar, Jimmy Blanton on bass, and Big Sid Catlett on drums. Incredible! Then, through Nat, I met Lionel Hampton, switched from alto sax to tenor and joined his band.”

Jacquet’s image was established forever when a wild, huge-toned chorus on Hampton’s record of “Flying’ Home” became what may be the most imitated solo in jazz. Tenor players of every succeeding generation have copied it; it has even been harmonized for a five-piece sax section.

Excitement was a product Jacquet was so adept at generating that he became a key figure in the sometimes bombastic “Jazz at the Philharmonic” tours of which he was often a member. But his orchestral link was never forgotten; after leaving Hampton he played with Cab Calloway’s then flourishing band, and later with Basie.

History books have ignored it, but he also had a big band of his own in 1947. At one point his trumpet section included Fats Navarro, Joe Newman and a 20-year-old Miles Davis.

“I got back in the band scene a few years ago,” he says, “through an invitation to lecture at Harvard University. They wanted to hear about my experiences coming up in the South. It was stimulating to talk to all these students and educators.

“I was asked to take part in a jam session, the kind where students play along with the masters. Well, the Harvard experience grew into a three year artist-in-residence program. I wound up teaching a group of students to play--I even wrote out blues solos for them, because this was something they didn’t yet have in them--and when the orchestra played a concert we got a standing ovation. I said to myself, if I could get the students to do this well, why shouldn’t I have a professional band of my own?”

Back in New York, he picked out some of the choice available men--”Some young, some middle aged”--and played a tryout gig in a local club. “We captured some of that real Midwestern flavor, along with the sounds of bands I’d been with. It felt right.

“Max Gordon of the Village Vanguard called me to play with a small group, but I was tired of those jam sessions. Finally, he let us come in with the whole band, and we broke the club’s all time attendance record.”

During the Vanguard engagement, Ahmet Ertegun caught the action and decided Jacquet ought to be on his Atlantic Records label. The result was “Jacquet’s Got It!” (Atlantic 7-81816-2), with such guest soloists as saxophonist Marshal Royal, bassist Milt Hinton and the phenomenal trumpeter Jon Faddis.

The record has done well, but it has been an uphill fight for the band. Outlets for a 17-man aggregation are not what they were in the halcyon years. Despite layoffs the personnel has remained fairly stable. The band has been to Europe twice, worked on a jazz cruise aboard the Norway last fall, and played a triumphant week in Japan in April.

If Jacquet has had his moments of doubt, they have been allayed by his discovery of meditation, now a central force in his life.

It began, he says, in 1985, when he went to a funeral parlor to see a beloved Basie colleague, the drummer Jo Jones. “There were only a few people there, people who hadn’t really known Jo that well, and I was really down in the dumps. My manager, Carol Scherick, suggested taking me to a guru she knew, a woman named Gurumayi.

“I had no idea that I would get anything out of it, but Gurumayi kinda took my mind, eased it away from where it was, and gave me some new thoughts to meditate on. Just by listening to her I was transformed into a more relaxed person.”

A month later Jacquet and Scherick were on a plane to meet Gurumayi at her home in Ganeshpuri, two hours outside Bombay. “No booze, no telephones, just peace and quiet; it was a little strange at first, but she’s helped me often since then, sometimes at her ashram in Upstate New York. Last Christmas we went back to India and spent 3 1/2 weeks with her.”

With the interest in Jacquet recharged by publicity surrounding his orchestra, other records have been reissued on compact discs. “Banned in Boston” on CBS Portrait RK 44391 includes some excellent 1962 small band dates, and “The Black Velvet Band” on RCA Bluebird 6571-2-RB comprises several earlier studio sessions, along with a live cut by Jacquet rejoining Hampton’s band to revive the “Flyin’ Home” glories at the 1967 Newport Jazz Festival.

Then as now, Jacquet’s horn revealed a dual personality. Though capable of arousing audiences to a frenzy (as he still does), he has earned respect as a masterful ballad player whose emotions run deep.

The big experience, he insists, is no mere ego trip. “I’ve done this because I feel the music deserves to be kept alive. I have the personality for it--I sing with the band, and as you know, I used to be a dancer--and I can sense, from the audience reaction in every country we’ve visited, that this is something people still want to hear. This is what God would have me do, and I’m happier doing it than I’ve ever before in my life.”