There’s a Jazzed-Up Land--Overseas : Tenor Saxophonist Put Down Musical Roots With Likes of Dolphy, Roach, Clifford Brown

Back in the ‘50s, tenor saxman Harold Land spent almost all his free timeover at Eric Dolphy’s pad, jamming with the local heavies. Dolphy, the revered, Los Angeles-born saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist and musical pioneer who died in 1964, held long-running jam sessions that have taken on legendary status, first at his parents’ home, then at his own apartment near Exhibition and La Cienega boulevards. Land, who plays tonight at the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach, remembers the scene well.

“Eric was the kind of individual who just had boundless playing energy,” Land, 63, said this week from his home in Los Angeles. “As soon as he got up in the morning, he’d be playing, even if he was there by himself.

“Musicians would just be coming by all through the day and night. (Drummer) Larance Marable, (pianist) Hampton Hawes, (saxophonists) Walter Benton and Frank Morgan all dropped by at different times. All of us were that hungry to play, so we just spent many hours, many days, just going over to Eric’s and playing.”

Trumpeter Clifford Brown showed up once and was so impressed with Land that he brought drummer Max Roach to hear him. Roach was equally struck, and suddenly Land found himself a member of the groundbreaking Clifford Brown-Max Roach quintet. After traveling the world with Brown and Roach for a couple years, Land left the gig--one of the most coveted of the last 50 years --to return to Los Angeles to be with his family.

He still thinks he did the right thing. “At the time, my grandmother was ill--she passed (away) before I could get back--and my son was still very young. I’d been back East for quite a while with Max and Clifford. So I came back to be with my wife and my son.”

Regrets or no, he acknowledged that the move affected his career. “No doubt about it. There probably would have been much more progress if I had stayed in New York, because there are so many opportunities available to musicians there. That’s where the music is.”

Born in Houston, Land developed an appetite for jazz as a teen-ager growing up in San Diego. Coleman Hawkins’ version of “Body and Soul” got him started. “That really made me want to play the saxophone. Then I started to hear the other great saxophonists like Lester Young, Don Byas, Ben Webster, Chu Berry. So many of them just bowled me over.”

In the early ‘50s, Los Angeles’ active jazz scene drew him north. “I had been able to play quite a bit down in San Diego but there was just so much jazz happening all over Los Angeles during that time. (Saxophonist) Teddy Edwards, (drummer) Roy Porter, Hampton Hawes and many other talented musicians were here, not to mention when Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Lucky Thompson all came to town. I knew I had to be in that environment if I could.”

That visiting group of New Yorkers made a special impression on Land. “Bird really did a number on me, as well as everyone else who’s ever picked up the saxophone. But Lucky was really an inspiration in my early years--such a great, fluid saxophonist.”

After the Brown-Roach quintet, Land stayed active in L.A., working with the Curtis Counce band and recording a pair of albums for Contemporary Records in the late ‘50s, “Harold in the Land of Jazz” and “The Fox,” a nickname he’d been given by Marable.

On the discs (both have been reissued), Land displays a style counter to the then-prevailing stereotype of West Coast jazz. Rather than cool and laid-back, he plays with decidedly be-bop inspired aggression, often with a tough-sounding tone and no-holds-barred expression.

In the liner notes to one of the albums, Land offered some advice to young musicians: “Be a plumber”--a view which, like his sax tone, has softened over the years. “That was probably just some ridiculous joke I was making,” he says now. “It really depends on how much the individual loves the music, if he’s willing to pay the dues that go along with it. If you love it enough, you don’t mind paying the dues. You have to dedicate you life to it and just hope that things work out well for you.”

For Land, things have. He has played on three well-respected albums by the Timeless All Stars, a band that also includes pianist Cedar Walton, vibist Bobby Hutcherson, drummer Billy Higgins, bassist David Williams and trombonist Curtis Fuller. “We’d like to work together more,” Land said, “but everybody’s been so active, we just can’t get together.”

Just this year, Land already has been to Europe twice--to Italy for nearly a month with Walton and Higgins and to France with fellow saxophonist Steve Grossman, bassist Reggie Johnson and drummer Jimmy Cobb. He goes to Holland in September, then to the United Kingdom in October with saxophonist Red Holloway. “I’ve been more active (overseas) than at home,” he said. “Things are so quiet in Los Angeles compared to the way it used to be. There used to be so many clubs.”

He blames the media. “They’re just not pushing it as much as other forms of music. People’s awareness of the music has been weakened to some degree over the years. There just isn’t the exposure. That’s not the case in Europe and Japan. There, people consider jazz to be a true art form. The media here doesn’t support that concept.”

The Harold Land Quartet plays tonight at 7:30 at the Hyatt Newporter, 1107 Jamboree Road, Newport Beach. $8. (714) 729-1234.