Avant-Garde Flutist Grows to Play Own Compositions

Flutist James Newton built his reputation as a member of the New York avant-garde during the late 1970s, especially with saxophonists David Murray and Arthur Blythe.

Since then, Newton has developed his own identity, a probing, exotic sound that ranges from the primal cries of some primitive bamboo reed instrument to clearly enunciated, modern jazz bop lines. He has been the top flutist in Downbeat magazine’s critics’ poll for eight years running.

Jazz fans will have a chance to hear Newton when he plays Elario’s Wednesday through Sunday--his first time at the club--with a quartet including Kevin Toney on piano, Derek Oles on bass and Sonship Theus on drums.

On his new album “If Love,” Newton explores seven songs of his own plus Duke Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss” with drummer Billy Hart, bassist Anthony Cox and pianist Mike Cain. By his own admission, Newton has moved away from the lengthy, free improvisations that marked his earlier work to concentrate on composing great songs. Within intriguing melodic, rhythmic and harmonic structures, though, he leaves plenty of room for band members to stretch out.

Born in San Pedro in 1953, Newton played rock in his early teens before taking up flute at 16 and listening closely to the music of flutists Eric Dolphy and Roland Kirk, and composers Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Charles Mingus. During his last year of high school, Newton played with critic/drummer Stanley Crouch’s band, then went on to earn a music degree at Cal State Los Angeles.

He moved to New York in 1978, where he tapped the avant-garde with musicians including pianist Anthony Davis, with whom he recorded three albums. Newton also made his first albums as a leader in New York before moving back to San Pedro in 1982.

Newton and his band will play two sets on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights at 8:30 and 10 and three on Friday and Saturday, at 9, 10:30 and midnight.

Pianist Mike Wofford and singer Ruth Price first worked together in 1964. Fresh off several dates this month at Giorgio’s, the jazz club in Long Beach, they appear this weekend at All That Jazz, the new club attached to the Wall St. Cafe in Rancho Bernardo. Unlike other jazz singers, Price doesn’t scat sing, but she finds subtle ways to add her signature to a song: “things I do with melody and time, with words, not scat syllables.”

She specializes in unearthing great songs you might not have heard before.

“I have a way of doing beautiful tunes that have not been done too often--standards, but not like ‘My Funny Valentine.’ ”

For example, the title track from her last album, the 1984 “Lucky to Be Me,” is a Leonard Bernstein composition from the Broadway show “On the Town.”

“I like songs with nice melodies and gorgeous harmonic possibilities,” Price explained. “My songs are all songs musicians very much enjoy playing, rich with possibilities for improvisation.”

Price, 52, has worked with pianists including Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, Erroll Garner, Alan Broadbent and Bill Evans during a career that began during the mid-1950s. She calls Wofford “one of the best living jazz players we have in the whole world today, and that’s not an exaggeration.”

“He’s a remarkable melodic innovator with seemingly no limitations. He’s rhythmic, and he can do the most complex things and it’s all organic, nothing is superfluous. He’s a truly mature player with a great gift.”

The weekends of Nov. 16 and 17 and Nov. 23 and 24, Price and Wofford plan to record a program for public radio at Giorgio’s. The tapes might also be made into a live album. Their music at All That Jazz this Friday and Saturday starts at 8.

The Society for Straight-Ahead Jazz, which presented a string of excellent jazz concerts at Diego’s Loft in Pacific Beach before taking a break in August, had planned to return to the Loft with an 11-show series beginning Sept. 30.

But after Diego’s management encouraged the series and society founders Bob and Gretchen Geib lined up the musicians, final confirmation from Diego’s management came so late that the series had to be canceled. Too bad.

Among the performers scheduled to appear were former John Coltrane bassist Dr. Art Davis, rarely heard local alto sax man Paul Sundfor and flutist Lori Bell with longtime musical partner pianist Dave Mackay. Diego’s management is reportedly considering equipping Diego’s Loft with pool tables instead of jazz, and the jazz society is looking for a new venue.

MUSIC FOR HALLOWEEN NIGHT: Hollis Gentry at the Catamaran, beginning at 8; Latin jazz guitarist Jaime Valle with his quartet at the B St. Cafe & Bar downtown, starting at 6; pianist Shep Meyers’ quartet at Croce’s at 8, and Earl Thomas and the Blues Ambassadors next door in the Top Hat Bar & Grill, from 9:30 to 1:30; saxophonist Mark Lessman and his band at the Del Mar Hilton from 6 to 10.

RIFFS: KSDS-FM’s seven-part series on Miles Davis begins at 8 p.m. Sunday. “The Miles Davis Radio Project” is hosted by Danny Glover and covers Davis’ life and music. The first show includes recollections by Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams and Clark Terry, plus a rare interview with be-bop sax master Charlie Parker. The program repeats Thursday at 11 a.m. . . .

“Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones,” a documentary, opened last Friday at the Hazard Center 7 movie theatres in Mission Valley. Hazard Center is a new retail/hotel complex at Friars Road and Interstate 163 . . .

South Market Street plays Dixieland and traditional jazz at the U.S. Grant Hotel tonight from 5:30 to 9:30, and Tobacco Road offers “vintage” jazz Friday night from 6 to 11.