Rob Mullins Leads Merry Band of Jazz Crusaders

Rob Mullins’ most important career decision happened when he was 14 years old. He was leaving for school in Denver one morning when a car jumped the curb and struck him, fracturing his leg.

Suddenly, the young Mullins, who since the age of 11 had been playing drums with big bands in Colorado and earlier in Ontario, Calif., had a problem. “You can’t play drums in a cast,” the now 35-year-old keyboardist said recently. “So I took up piano.”

Mullins has since recorded nine albums, all of which have made the Billboard Top 20 contemporary jazz chart. His single, “Making Love,” was nominated for a Grammy in 1985. The Huntington Beach resident brings his jazz All Stars to the Fine Arts Recital Hall at Orange Coast College on Sunday.

In a phone interview, Mullins recalled how he met Crusaders’ saxophonist Wilton Felder, now an integral part of Mullins’ band.

Guitarist “Phil Upchurch had called me at the last minute to play with him at the Palace (in Hollywood), so late that I didn’t even have a chance to meet anybody in the band,” he said. “I just went right out on the stage. Since I didn’t know the tunes, I was pretty tied up reading the book, paying attention to the music.

“Then the sax player went into his first solo and I thought, ‘That sound is really familiar.’ I tried to place it all during the set, but the guy never turned around, I never saw his face. And when Phil introduced the band, it was Wilton. I just couldn’t believe it. (The Rob Mullins Band) had Crusaders’ tunes in the book since I was 18 or 19. And there I was on stage with Wilton Felder.”

The admiration, it turned out, was mutual. Felder has been in the keyboardist’s group since a 1989 date at the defunct Bon Appetit club in Westwood, and Mullins appeared on Felder’s recent “Nocturnal Mood” recording. Felder also introduced Mullins to former Crusaders’ trombonist Wayne Henderson, who tabbed Mullins for his “Next Crusade” project.

And Felder recommended the other two members of Mullins’ All Stars, bassist Alphonso Johnson and percussionist Ndugu Chancler. Mullins, a big fan of the Joe Zawinul-Wayne Shorter group Weather Report and Miles Davis (both Chancler and Johnson appear on Weather Report’s 1978 recording “Mr. Gone,” and Chancler did a stint with Davis in the ‘70s), said the two have opened up possibilities for him and his first love, composing.

“I’ve always considered myself a writer more than a player. And these guys are comfortable with every style of music; they can play anything you put out in front of them. It doesn’t matter if it’s straight-ahead, if it’s dance music, if it’s jazz fusion, if it’s simple or complicated. They can do everything.”

Born in Enid, Okla., Mullins was raised in Ontario before moving to Denver at age 14. “My parents listened to a lot of jazz and big band music when I was growing up,” he said. “So while my sisters were listening to the Beatles and the Monkees and the Doors, I was listening to Buddy Rich, Count Basie, Glenn Miller and Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. I kind of skipped rock ‘n’ roll early on.”

He formed his first band at 16, a quintet that played “Stella by Starlight” and “ ‘Round Midnight” (a tune still in Mullins’ repertoire) as well as originals. His high school’s music program included field trips to clinics where he studied with Oliver Nelson, Clark Terry and Urbie Green. His biggest thrill, he said, occurred at a clinic in Mobile, Ala., when he stood on stage and played “Stolen Moments” with Oliver Nelson.

“It was a wonderful thing they had going on in the school system back in Denver,” he noted. “If it hadn’t been for that, I think I would have gone into accounting or something.”

Mullins attended the University of Northern Colorado as a music education major for a while until a friend won a grant to study with controversial composer-pianist George Russell in New York and invited the 19-year-old Mullins to go along. He accepted.

“We canceled everything and drove out to New York in his Dodge, the kind that Broderick Crawford drove in ‘Highway Patrol,’ ” he said. “The first class--there were only four of us--was held in the kitchen of the Village Vanguard.

“The important thing I realized from (Russell) is that there are basically two approaches to writing and composing. One is theoretical and mathematical and the other is emotional and illogical. George’s thing was very mathematical and planned out. But you need a combined approach to writing. The exciting thing about being a human and writing music is that these flashes of inspiration hit you. You can sit down with all the books and computers in the world and come up with something mathematical. But you also have to be open to that wacky, other-side-of-the-brain stuff.”

Back in Denver, Mullins started his own recording company, “because I didn’t know how much money I could lose,” he said with a laugh. But persistence pushing his recordings paid off and soon his self-produced “Soulscape” recording was being played on National Public Radio stations and he began to get calls.

“Next thing I knew, I was driving out to L.A. to play At My Place” in Santa Monica, he said. That was the beginning of two years of serious commuting. “I’d spend one week a month in Denver playing with my band and paying the rent, and three weeks in L.A. looking for a job. I spent about nine days a month on the road.”

Finally, he got a deal with Nova and moved to Studio City. His album, “5th Gear,” followed. “Jazz Jazz,” an acoustic outing that featured tunes Mullins wrote in the ‘70s as well as “Body and Soul” and other standards, came in 1989. His most recent album, “Tokyo Nights,” was released in 1990.

Now he is concentrating on music for the current band. “I’ve worked with these guys enough that I know their personalities and can tailor the music to them. Everyone gets to be featured. I don’t know how to categorize the sound. It’s more mature, more focused.”

The Rob Mullins All Stars with saxophonist Wilton Felder, bassist Alphonso Johnson and percussionist Ndugu Chancler play Sunday, Dec. 13, at 8 p.m. in the Fine Arts Recital Hall at Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $10 in advance, $13 at the door. (714) 432-5880.