Hofmann’s Rise Measured by the Company She Keeps

You can take the measure of Holly Hofmann’s career by the increasingly respectable company she keeps, culminating last August when she occupied a lofty “flute summit” at the Lincoln Center alongside Dave Valentin, Buddy Collette and Herbie Mann.

Since the release of her debut solo recording, “Take Note,” in 1990, Hofmann, who plays the Horton Grand Hotel in downtown San Diego this weekend, has also enjoyed critical praise, including four of five possible stars in Downbeat for “Take Note.”

The follow-up, “Further Adventures,” came out last year, and Hofmann plans to record live at the Horton Grand next month with under-appreciated fluegelhorn player Bobby Shew. She may also make an album with Valentin in the not-too-distant future.

Hofmann, who grew up in Cleveland, names Frank Wess and James Moody as her heroes on flute. She studied with Wess during several summers in the early 1980s in New York City. But flutists weren’t her only guiding lights.

“I got my ballad style from listening to (sax man) Johnny Hodges in the Les Brown and Duke Ellington bands,” she said.

Hofmann is also a seasoned classical player, and her roots play off each other in her music: The loose spontaneity of jazz is tempered by her classical side, which finds expression in precise technique and the melodically and harmonically complex solos she tosses off with apparent ease.

During the past two years as talent coordinator for the Horton Grand, Hofmann has booked--and had a chance to sit in with--a steady stream of great jazz players, including Leroy Vinnegar, Bobby Shew and Cedar Walton. These experiences, combined with her national touring and her determination, have helped elevate her musicianship to new levels, with the result that Hofmann no longer considers her first two releases to be accurate representations of her abilities.

“Your first record has to be an example of good solid playing, which is what that first record was designed to do, in interpretations of the great master writers: Coltrane, Monk, Bud Powell. Then the second one you can do a little more expansion, so the second had more of what I really am stretching for. But that one is obsolete now too. It’s not representative of how I’m playing today. In one year, I have grown a lot.”

You can hear the newest, improved Hofmann this Friday and Saturday nights at 8:30 at the Horton Grand, backed by Del Mar guitarist Peter Sprague and San Diego bassist Bob Magnusson.

With a push from San Diego-based Time Is Records, “Manhattan Fantasy,” last year’s debut recording by the San Diego-based straight-ahead jazz band Common Ground, is gaining national radio play. Common Ground self-produced the album in 1990, and signed a distribution deal with Time Is last year. Through a determined promotional push, Time Is has gained air time for the album on 29 jazz stations, according to band member Steve Feierabend.

Common Ground includes San Diegans Feierabend on sax, Dave Marr on bass and Tim McMahon on drums, plus former San Diegan Randy Porter (now living in Portland, Ore.) on piano.

The band doesn’t plan to record again until interest in the current release has peaked, according to Feierabend, who earns his bread and butter playing miscellaneous local dates such as the opening Feb. 22 of the ritzy Paladion shopping center downtown, where he appeared as part of Benny Hollman’s Big Band.

You can also hear Feierabend the next few Sunday nights live with the 20-piece Dan Terry and the Horns of San Diego, at the Hotel del Coronado, broadcast live from 6 to 10 on KSDS-FM (88.3). Feierabend will be also interviewed on KSDS this Friday afternoon at 2.

Meanwhile, Terry is out of action for a couple of weeks after suffering a heart attack. Last week, he was in good spirits at Veterans Hospital in La Jolla with plans to go home over the weekend.

Terry said he had been stressed out in recent weeks by his ongoing battles with the Musicians Union Local 325 in San Diego, over his Big Band dates at the Del. Terry is not a union member, but all of the musicians he hires are.

“Here I created this job and put 20 people to work, you’d think the union would be happy,” Terry said. “But they gave me more bull than I’d ever dream of going through. They really hassled me about the guys working for me, they claimed I was paying them under scale and came up with all kinds of rules and regulations that affect no one but me. I agreed to bargain with them collectively, and we’re at that stage now.”

Terry plans to return to the band stand at the Del this Sunday.

RIFFS: San Diego guitarist Steve Laury’s new release, “Passion,” looks like a hit. It entered Radio & Records’ magazine’s New Adult Contemporary chart two weeks ago at No. 25 and by last week had shot up to No. 12. The ranking is based on national airplay. In San Diego, KIFM (98.1) has placed Laury’s recording in “hot and heavy rotation,” according to Tony Schondel, the station’s music director. . . .

In early February, Mark Briskin took over as general manager of the financially troubled, 108-room Horton Grand Hotel, one of San Diego’s top jazz venues. Briskin and a management team from Grand Heritage, a national company that owns or operates seven other Victorian hotels, hope to successfully shepherd the historic hotel through a bankruptcy reorganization. Briskin vowed that the hotel’s jazz policy will continue and said management may even spend more money on bringing top jazz players to town. San Diego flutist Holly Hofmann will continue to coordinate talent. Upcoming dates include an April 10 appearance by hot young pianist Marcus Roberts. . . .

San Diego sax man James Moody, a health and nutrition buff, was home last week and fasting to cleanse his body and mind after a road trip to Amsterdam. Later this month, he’ll tour England with an all-star group also including Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Slide Hampton and Kenny Barron.

CRITIC’S CHOICE: IN SEARCH OF A MUSICAL SOUL

Saxophonist Eric Marienthal is one of the Young Turks who appear alongside seasoned master Chick Corea in Corea’s Elektric Band, but Marienthal is also forging a viable solo career. He has plenty of technique but is still searching for a musical soul. Maybe it will emerge this weekend, when he forgoes the funky, pop polish of his last album, “Oasis,” in favor of three nights of raw live music at the Jazz Note in Pacific Beach, joined by a band including fellow Chick Corea protege John Patitucci. Show times are 8 and 10 Friday and Saturday nights, 7 and 9 Sunday night.