Woodwinds of Change : Flutist Holly Hofmann Puts Jazz Before Gender

Flutist Holly Hofmann’s appearance this weekend at Maxwell’s is a landmark of sorts in her career: It’s the first time she’s ever worked in an ensemble composed entirely of women. “I’ve always avoided working with women and female ensembles,” said the musician, 35, whose credits include stints with trombonist Slide Hampton, pianists Cedar Walton and Kenny Barron and saxophonists-flutists Bobby Watson and Frank Wess, among others. “I just didn’t want to be put in that category. I’d rather be recognized for my music than my gender.”

So why the change for this performer whose most recent three albums have featured only male musicians in support?

“When I heard these women play”--”these women” being pianist Cecilia Coleman, bassist Mary McSweeney and drummer Janette Wrate--”I decided that musically it would be a great experience. I hadn’t run into an entire group of women that I wanted to play with before this,” she said in a phone conversation earlier this week from her home in San Diego.

Being a woman and a flute player creates a double stigma. “Some people don’t think the flute is a jazz instrument, and they certainly have a preconceived idea of how a female is going to play it,” she said. “But my style is totally opposite from that. Males have an idea that a female flute player is going to play very fluffy and very frilly. But there’s nothing the slightest bit feminine in my style. It’s very aggressive and hard driving.”

Anyone who has heard her two quartet recordings, “Take Note” and “Further Adventures,” or her recent release of duo and trio formats, “Duo Personality,” knows that the Hofmann has not only the technique--she was classically trained--but also the muscle to make things happen.

“I’ve faced the preconception that a female flute player isn’t going to be able to go toe-to-toe with male horn players. But I try to make the flute just another one of the horns. Many times rhythm sections that work with me, they don’t want to play my charts; they have an attitude about how the performance will be. Then after the fact, they’ll come up to me and say, ‘Hey, we didn’t want to play with you at first, but we’re happy now.’ ”

Hofmann says flutes are almost automatically given to schoolgirls when they first begin band. “One of the reasons parents have told me they start little girls on flutes is because they can carry them. So they attach the flute to females as the appropriate instrument, I guess, because it’s small. That annoys me.”

Hofmann’s start on the instrument came in her native Cleveland at age 5. “My older sister brought a flute home from school one day and, for some reason, I picked it up and began to play it. It was a very natural situation.”

From the beginning, her talent was evident. By age 7, Hofmann was taking lessons from the late Maurice Sharp, then-principal flutist with the Cleveland Orchestra. “I was absolutely forbidden (by him) to be in the school band and didn’t get any of that sort of training because my teacher didn’t want me to have any other influences, wanted me to get started really right. They didn’t want me to get the fingering or the embouchure confused as sometimes happens in the school-band situation.”

At 10, Hofmann performed a Handel Flute Sonata with the Cleveland Chamber Orchestra. At 17, she began to substitute in the Cleveland Orchestra. At the same time, she was picking up on jazz.

“I played jazz with my father (guitarist Nelson Hofmann) all during this time. Every day, after dinner, we’d sit down and play together. By the time I was 10, I knew 25 or 30 standards, and sometimes I would sit in with my dad’s group.”

Hofmann’s studies continued at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Mich., before she received a bachelor’s degree in music from the Cleveland Institute of Music. After finishing her master’s degree at Northern Colorado University in Greeley (where she was a classmate of Orange County keyboardist Rob Mullins), Hofmann didn’t know which path to follow, classical or jazz.

“I did know that to play either well, I was going to have to get those chops. I started hearing the great players--Frank Wess, James Moody--and they were doing things I couldn’t yet do.”

While teaching in Cleveland after graduate school, she realized that jazz was her true calling, that the classical world was not for her. She spent time in Denver but soon realized “it was not a place that supported a jazz audience.” She moved to San Diego in 1984.

“I had friends in San Diego, and they were always telling me about the wonderful jazz that was happening there. I knew that I would have to go to one of the coasts to get into the mainstream of it all, but New York seemed a bit intimidating at that point, so I ended up here.”

In 1992, Hofmann toured the Midwest and East Coast, including stops at New York’s Visiones nightclub and a Lincoln Center concert with Buddy Collette, Herbie Mann and Dave Valentin dubbed “A Flute Fantasia.” She also made appearances in Australia and New Zealand.

In addition to concerts and studio work, Hofmann has for the past three years booked jazz into San Diego’s Horton Grand hotel, where she plays on a semi-regular basis while bringing in such musicians as Louie Bellson, Joe Pass and Kenny Burrell.

Although a number of San Diego night spots have closed down in the past year, Hofmann is optimistic about the Horton. “It’s a long-term thing to invest in a music that has a limited following and is not a huge money-maker. And I don’t think a lot of people have the wherewithal or patience to hang in. It’s taken me years to build that program to where we have a great following and are now pretty full most every night.”

Although she makes only a few classical appearances each year, she values the classical training she received early on. “I’m so glad I had it--it’s my classical tone that sets me apart from other flute players. A lot of people think that jazz artists don’t have to have that technique and ability that classical players have. But I’ve found that jazz is a much harder music to play. And my classical training has only made it easier.”

* The Holly Hofmann Quartet plays Friday and Saturday at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. and Sunday 4 and 6 p.m. at Maxwell’s by the Sea, 317 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach. $5 cover, $7 minimum food and beverage charge. (714) 536-2555.