Putting a ‘Foot in Each Camp’ : Jazz: Saxophonist Hollis Gentry is comfortable producing pop jazz with his band Neon and others, but he also keeps things humming by performing traditional numbers on his own.

Saxophonist Hollis Gentry spent most of last summer touring thecountry with pop jazz guitarist Larry Carlton, a plum assignment that gave him a national profile and also helped publicize his own light jazz band, Neon.

But chasing success in commercial pop jazz isn’t enough for Gentry, who is 36 and lives in San Diego. He is equally drawn to traditional acoustic jazz, the music of people like saxman Cannonball Adderley, Gentry’s mentor.

“It’s always been a foot in each camp,” he said. “For a long time, I felt more comfortable with electric fusion. I had to learn to play bop. Electric jazz was dominant when I was in college. Traditional jazz was the mystery.

“But, based on my thesis at UC (San Diego), I saw how the two are related, with traditional jazz as the parent.”

Gentry has enough talent to cover both bases. Last Tuesday night at the U.S. Grant Hotel downtown, his tenor rang out bright and full as he confidently worked his way through several jazz standards.

His solos ranged from sliding, searing be-bop lines to moody, romantic echoes of John Coltrane and funky honks that hark back to his high school and college days playing soul and R&B.;

The Carlton connection could take Gentry’s career to new highs. Carlton may produce Neon’s next album later this year, and Gentry also hopes to record an album of straight-ahead jazz.

Last week alone, Gentry worked several Los Angeles dates: a show called “R&B; Live” at the Beverly Center featuring Al Jarreau, Thelma Houston, Andre Crouch and other heavies; a straight-ahead date with drummer Phil Matrano at Carroll O’Connor’s Place; and a gig with Carlton at the National Assn. of Music Merchandisers convention in Anaheim.

“The quest has always been to start getting the calls in Los Angeles,” Gentry said. “Now it’s happening, I’m happy to say.”

With his career picking up steam, Gentry spends at least half his time in Los Angeles. But he took time out last week to talk about his music at his San Diego apartment, a small bachelor’s pad where walls are decorated with posters from some of his shows. Much of the remaining space is littered with musical paraphernalia: cassettes, a small cassette recorder, a boom box, an upright piano, several flutes from foreign lands and a black attache case packed with sheet music for his many jobs.

Offstage, Gentry’s threads and hip, casual style are reminiscent of talk show host Arsenio Hall. He wore high-top basketball shoes, torn, faded blue jeans, a double-breasted black shirt, and a black satin Los Angeles Raiders jacket with his name embroidered on it. An earring dangled from one ear, and his hair was cut in a high flat-top.

When told he looked a little like Hall, Gentry turned the tables. Hall borrowed the Hollis Gentry look, he joked.

Gentry grew up listening to a variety of music, which helps explain his broad-based career. He was born in Corpus Christi, Tex., but has lived in San Diego since boyhood.

He was a standout in the band at O’Farrell Junior High in San Diego. Already hip to the future, Gentry played his sax through a primitive synthesizer as the junior high band won a music competition at Southwestern College in 1969. Gentry received one of two Outstanding Musician awards.

At Crawford High School in the early 1970s, while listening to Blood, Sweat & Tears, James Brown and Eddie Harris, Gentry honed his talent in several student ensembles and was even the marching band’s drum major for a year.

Outside school, he helped lead a funk-R&B; group called Power, inspired by the Oakland band Tower of Power. The group included fellow Crawford student Nathan East, the bass player who now tours with guitarist Eric Clapton.

After high school, Gentry enrolled in the music program at UCSD.

In 1973, East, Gentry and their group toured as part of singer Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra in a review that also featured the Dramatics and the Isley Brothers. Gentry soloed often on both flute and sax, and the climax of the national tour came when the review played the Apollo Theater in Harlem for a week.

Gentry was only 19 at the time, and the attention was heady. He was tempted to leave school for the full-time life of a musician.

“But I came to realize that, no matter how good you are as a musician, you will get a lot further with credentials--a degree. I saw that those who had the academic training had the power.”

So when the tour broke, he returned to UCSD to finish his music degree.

Power opened a San Diego show for saxman Adderley in 1974 and toured California in the summer of 1974 with Adderley.

“One time, Cannonball (Adderley) really blew me away, man,” Gentry said. “He was living in L.A. in a big house near Efram Zimbalist Jr., and he pulled out Charlie Parker’s original C melody horn. It was the most incredible spiritual feeling I had when I opened that case up. He said, ‘Go ahead, play it.’ But I just fingered it and put it back.

“Cannonball was always my inspirational guru, but I was also blown away by Miles (Davis), Freddie Hubbard, Coltrane. At that point, guys like that were mystical heroes. Now, I’m meeting and playing with some of them and being accepted on their level.”

After college, Gentry became a fixture on the San Diego jazz scene during the late 1970s. He joined fluegelhorn player Bruce Cameron’s band in 1980. When Cameron quit in 1984, Gentry and the remaining members formed the original Fattburger, with Carl Evans Jr. on piano, Mark Hunter on bass and Kevin Koch on drums.

Gentry left Fattburger to form Hollis Gentry’s Neon in 1986. The group’s first and only album, named after the band, came out in 1987. It was re-released by the Nova label in 1988, and is still selling well, according to Gentry.

Neon has gone through several lineup changes since. Besides Gentry, drummer Johnny Casteneda is the only remaining original member.

Gentry hits the road with Carlton again in March, this time for a tour of Japan. Carlton has taken Gentry under his wing.

“Larry always wanted me to have my own career,” Gentry said. “He wants me to travel and play music with him for a few years to learn the business at that level.”

For the moment, Gentry holds down most Tuesday evenings through the end of February at the U.S. Grant Hotel, playing straight-ahead jazz with top locals Bob Hamilton on piano, Tim McMahon on drums and Chris Conner on bass. The next two Wednesday night, Gentry and Neon will perform at the Catamaran in Pacific Beach, playing some of the material they hope to use for a new album.

The Wednesday shows at the Catamaran start at 8 p.m.. Gentry’s Tuesday night straight-ahead jazz dates this month at the U.S. Grant Hotel run from 5:30 to 9:30.